Tag: God

Unfinished Country, Unfinished Faith

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Sermon for July 5, 2026 || Proper 9A || Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Yesterday was the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. I spent a long time this week deciding whether or not I should frame my sermon around this auspicious day or ignore it, considering that our faith as followers of Jesus reaches far beyond the borders of a single country. The more I pondered, the more convicted I became that I should talk about the 250th anniversary of the United States of America in order to draw some parallels between our country and our faith. Both our country and our faith derive from high ideals. Both our country and our faith have been elevated by visionaries. Both have been sullied by villains. And today, on the first day of Year 251, both remain unfinished. That’s what we’re going to talk about for the next ten minutes: the unfinished nature of our country and our faith.

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Charisma

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Sermon for Sunday, June 28, 2026 || Proper 8A || Romans 12:12-23

Today we’re going to talk about spiritual gifts. I know we read the difficult story of the Binding of Isaac this morning, but I preached on it the last time it came up in the rotation, so I can point you to that sermon if you’d like. We’re going to talk about spiritual gifts this morning for two reasons. First, in today’s second lesson, St. Paul talks about God’s “free gift of eternal life.” Second, I’ve been preaching a lot recently about walking in this fractured and fractious world, trying to hold on to hope, grow in grace, do justice, and live in the liberating light of God’s love. The practice of discerning, cultivating, and sharing our spiritual gifts guides us in this walk with Jesus Christ. And so today, I’d like to talk about giftedness.

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The God Who Sees (updated)

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Sunday, June 21, 2026 || Proper 7A || Genesis 21:8-21

Today, I’d like to talk about Hagar. Specifically, I’d like to talk about Hagar’s vision and how God grants us the same capacity for faithful seeing that Hagar has. First, though, you might be wondering who Hagar is. Hagar is an Egyptian servant (or slave) in the household of Abraham and Sarah. When God promises Abraham (then called Abram) that God will give him countless descendants, the old couple don’t know what to do. They’ve never had children of their own, and now they’re way too old. Taking God’s promise into her own hands, Sarah (then called Sarai) offers her servant Hagar to Abraham, saying, “It may be that I shall obtain children by her.” (If this sounds eerily like The Handmaid’s Tale, it is.)

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Hope Does Not Disappoint Us

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Sermon for Sunday, June 14 2026 || Proper 6A | Romans 5:1-8

It has been about nine months since I preached a sermon about hope, so I think we’re due for one today. Hope is one of those slippery theological concepts because true, enduring hope differs from the more common Pollyanna-ish, reality-defying hope. But since we more often encounter the Pollyanna-ish hope, such a watered down version of hope tends to creep to the forefront of our minds. St. Paul, however, describes a much more hard-won hope, one that begins in suffering. And that’s the hope we’re going to talk about today. Also, a little bit of Calvin and Hobbes, but we’ll get to that in a minute or two.

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How Old is God? (and other questions)

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Sermon for Sunday, June 7, 2026 || Proper 5A

Today is our Youth Sunday at St. Mark’s, and to celebrate we invited the Godly Play kids to ask me any questions they desired. We collected a list of twelve questions, ten of which are autobiographical in nature. We’ll run through those quickly. The last two are absolute theological doozies, so we’ll spend the bulk of this sermon tackling those two. Here we go with the first ten.

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Grace, Love, Sharing

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Sermon for Sunday, May 31, 2026 || Trinity Sunday A || 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

At the end of his second letter to the church in Corinth, St. Paul writes these memorable words of blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” As we celebrate the Holy Trinity today, I’d like to focus on the three words that Paul associates with this fundamental truth of Creation: grace, love, and communion.

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Collaborators

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Sermon for Sunday, May 24, 2026 || Pentecost A || Numbers 11:24-30

One of the most powerful words in the English language is the first person plural pronoun “We.” That’s what we are going to talk about today on this day when celebrate the birth of the church and baptize a child into this wonderful part of God’s household. We’re going to talk about the power of collaboration and how our community of encouragement, togetherness, and mutual support is a prophetic enterprise in a world of increasing fracture and isolation.

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John 14:6

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments
Sermon for Sunday, May 2, 2026 || Easter 5A || John 14:1-14

Today we’re going to spend our entire sermon time talking about a single verse of the Gospel reading. John Chapter 14, Verse Six says: “Jesus said to [Thomas], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The first half of this verse is so beautiful and enlivening in its poetry. Then, to our modern ears, we hear the second half of the verse as terribly exclusive, as a complete barrier against anyone who is not Christian being able to gain access to God. So let’s wrestle with this verse this morning and see where we end up. We’ll start with the first half, this great “I Am” saying, and my hope is that the “I Am” statement will shine a new light on the second half of the verse.

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Driven Out

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Sermon for Sunday, April 26, 2026 || Easter 4A || John 10:1-10

This sermon is about comfort zones, and specifically about how Jesus ejects us from our comfort zones. I was toying with the idea of making you all get up and sit in different seats, but I decided not to afflict you that much. Instead, I’m going to afflict you with another one of my lessons in ancient Greek. And we’ll start with today’s Gospel reading.

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On His Way to Me

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Sermon for Sunday, April 19, 2026 || Easter 3A || Luke 24:13-35

The world is a heavy place right now. I know I have felt way more stress than normal weighing me down recently. When I feel like this, I recognize my need to pray more, to connect more closely to God, to be an active participant in my relationship with the One who is nearer to me than I am to myself. Throughout my adult life, whenever I have felt this need, I have reached for my guitar. Before the pandemic, I had not written a new song in several years. But during those first months of lockdown, I wrote six new songs. Writing those songs was the only way I could find to realign myself with God in the midst of such a strange and scary time.

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