Who Did Not Know Joseph

Sermon for Sunday, August 23, 2026 || Proper 16A || Exodus 1:8 – 2:10

Today we’re going to talk about the past, specifically about how the past is a story continually being written and rewritten. We’ll start with a few famous sayings about the past in order to ground us, and then we’ll look at the most ominous sentence in the entire Bible, which begins our reading from the book of Exodus this morning. By the end of this sermon, I hope we will all have a new appreciation for our roles in ensuring access to a story of the past that is as accurate to the events of history as possible.

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New Covenant

Sermon for Sunday, October 19, 2025 || Proper 24C || Jeremiah 31:27-34

A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon about hope. With the Babylonian armies beating down the walls of Jerusalem, the Prophet Jeremiah purchased the field at Anathoth. Jeremiah then had the deeds of purchase sealed in earthenware vessels to last a long time. This prophetic action signaled that the Israelites would return from their exile and once again purchase houses and fields and vineyards in their own land. Today’s reading from Jeremiah begins with the realization of that hope. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals.…I will watch over them to build and to plant.”

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A Wide Open Heart

Sermon for Sunday, June 24, 2018 || Proper 7B || 2 Corinthians 6:1-13

When I was a brand new priest, one of the biggest mistakes I made was comparing my vocation to other “professional” occupations. I made this mistake because I went to the same number of years of graduate school as a lawyer, and mine was a helping profession like a doctor. Your pastor is right up there with your surgeon or your litigator, I reasoned, and here are my credentials. It took a couple of years for me to learn this was a really foolish approach to pastoring. A mentor of mine pointed out the error in my thinking like this. He said, “People only go to surgeons when they need surgery or to lawyers when they’re in trouble. Don’t you want to walk with people every step of the way?” Continue reading “A Wide Open Heart”