Tag: future

A Lantern to My Feet

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Sermon for Sunday, July 12, 2026 || Proper 10A || Psalm 119:105-112

I don’t often preach about the psalm, but today’s reading begins with a particularly beautiful verse that captured my imagination this Tuesday, my normal sermon writing day. I was planning on writing at the Westerly Library while my kids were at theatre camp, but the back rear tire of my car had a screw embedded in it, causing a slow leak. Thankfully the guys at Town Fair Tire could take my walk in. I grabbed a seat in the waiting area, under harsh fluorescent lights, trying to ignore America’s Funniest Videos on the TV. I sat there, hoping the Holy Spirit would nudge me toward some words to share with you. (Don’t worry, the tire place will become important in a few minutes; I’m not just talking about it to pad the length of this sermon.)

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The Future

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Sunday, November 10, 2024 || Proper 27B || The Book of Ruth

Today, I am going to begin where last Sunday’s sermon finished, with the future. I ended by saying, “And Jesus is here, walking with us into the future where God is already, always, and eternally present.” For some of us, that future looks bleaker than it did a week ago. For others, that future looks brighter. But no matter our place on the ideological spectrum, none of us knows what the future holds. And such unknowing is prime fodder for anxiety.

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Finished (God’s Point of View, part 7 of 8)

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, February 19, 2017 || Epiphany 7A || Matthew 5:38-48

Just today and next week left in our Epiphany sermon series in which we are imagining our way into God’s eyes and trying to see ourselves as God sees us. God sees, names, and celebrates us as beloved, befriended, gifted, blessed, and enlightened. Last week we talked about God designing us to be unfinished products, always ready for further growth as we love and serve the Lord. So it might surprise you that we return to God’s point of view today and see that God also names us “finished.” How can we be both finished and unfinished at the same time? Well, this is one of those experiences of both/and reality so common where God is concerned.

More than any sermon in this series, I am least qualified to talk about this one. In the next few minutes I might say something that is true, but if I do, it will have been by accident because what I’m really going to do is talk about Adam’s point of view about God’s point of view. It springs from Jesus’ command at the end of today’s Gospel: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In other words, be complete, be your entire self, be finished. Now from our own point of view, it is impossible to be our entire selves, to be finished as it were, because we still have many days ahead of us. But God’s point of view is, I think, entirely different.

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