Tag: Lord of the Rings

A Season of Creation

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Sermon for Sunday, September 6, 2026 || Proper 18A || Matthew 18:15-20; Pope Francis, Laudato Si’

You might have noticed that our second reading today came from a non-biblical source. This is a highly uncommon practice in the Episcopal Church, so uncommon in fact that the bishop had to approve it. For today and for the next four Sundays, we will hear readings from sources other than the Bible as we celebrate a Season of Creation. This special season is a fairly new invention in the life of the Church. The season sets off a series of Sundays in September and early October with the specific intention of praising God’s presence in Creation and recommitting ourselves to the preservation and renewal of the natural world. It makes sense that this special season takes place during the long months of so-called “ordinary time,” which is another name for the thirty-ish Sundays between Pentecost and Advent. The days of harvest are upon us. The liturgical color of the time after Pentecost is green. Godly Play calls this time the “green and growing” Sundays. So, each Sunday from now until October 4th, we will share special readings, prayers, and songs in order to grow our awareness of, appreciation for, and commitment to God’s movement in Creation.

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Who Did Not Know Joseph

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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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My Precious

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, September 7, 2025 || Proper 18C || Luke 14:25-33

The Gospel lesson Deacon Chuck just read for us contains one of Jesus’ more inflammatory statements: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” We’re going to unpack this inflammatory statement today, but first I want to tell you all about a person named Sméagol.

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The Time That is Given Us

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Sermon for Sunday, July 6, 2025 || Proper 9C || Galatians 6:7-16

Today, we read a good chunk of the end of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. One line jumped out at me this week, and that’s what I’d like to focus on this morning. Paul says, “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up.” Let us not grow weary in doing what is right. Another translation says, “Let’s not get tired of doing good.”

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The Dawn from on High

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Sermon for Sunday, December 8, 2024 || Advent 2C || The Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79)

There’s a wonderful scene in the movie The Two Towers, which is the middle film of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I know I talk a lot about Star Wars in sermons, but my love for The Lord of the Rings is even greater than my love for Star Wars. So stick with me while I describe the scene. The people of Edoras have left their homes to take shelter in the great bastion known as Helm’s Deep. A few days before the flight to the supposedly impregnable fortress, the wizard Gandalf raced out of Edoras on his majestic steed Shadowfax in order to round up the cavalry spread across the country of Rohan. “Look to my coming at first light on the fifth day,” Gandalf told Aragorn. “At dawn, look to the east.”

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The Discipline of Gentleness

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Sermon for Sunday, March 6, 2022 || Lent 1C || Luke 4:1-13

After a full two years of pandemic, I think we can all relate to Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. After his baptism, he heads from the Jordan River into the desert. He eats nothing, and for nearly six weeks endures the temptations of the devil. The only sustenance he has is the Holy Spirit. Luke tells us that Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit.” I’m reminded of a funny scene in the movie The Fellowship of the Ring. Legolas the elf explains to the hobbits Merry and Pippin about Elvish lembas bread. “One small bite is enough to fill the stomach of a grown man,” Legolas says. “How many did you eat?” Merry asks Pippin after Legolas leaves. Pippin lets out a little burp and says, “Four.”

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Peace Be With You

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Sermon for Sunday, April 11, 2021 || Easter 2B || John 20:19-31

Today, I’d like to talk about peace. But first, a confession. I am a total, unabashed, and excitable nerd. Most of you know this about me. I know way too much about Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and several other properties that live in nerd space. My first book, which became Digital Disciple, originally had the working title “God’s Nerd.” I even co-host a podcast called The Podcast for Nerdy Christians. I say all this to prepare you for what I am about to say next. 

When I created the world of Sularil in which to set my first ever Dungeons and Dragons game, one of the things I really wanted to do was create a language native to the world. The very first new word I created for my Elvish language was the word, “Peace” – “Fyara” in Elvish. I wanted “Peace” to be the word of greeting for the elves in my world, and so the first person would say, “Fyara” (Peace) and the other person would respond, “Fyarana” (Deeper peace).

I did this because the elves in my world are peaceful people. I wanted the first and last word on their lips to be a word of peace. Indeed, this word is also the first word on the lips of the Risen Christ when he encounters the disciples locked in the room on the night of the resurrection. “Peace be with you,” he says (or in the Elvish translation of the Gospel, “Fyara”). Three times in today’s reading, he offers them peace. Jesus offers this greeting of peace to his fearful disciples, and like so much else in John’s Gospel, even something as simple as this greeting has layers of meaning.

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The Loving Gaze of God

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Sermon for Sunday, February 14, 2021 || Last Epiphany B || Mark 9:2-9

Christianity has many symbols, the cross being chief among them – a device of death and domination that Jesus transformed into a symbol of life and reconciliation. There are plenty of other symbols too, and many of them are animals: the lamb, the fish, the dove. And, perhaps most beautifully, the butterfly. Like the cross, the butterfly is also a symbol of transformation. The butterfly undergoes metamorphosis as it changes from the caterpillar, through the chrysalis, and emerges in its luminous form with wings like an artist’s palette.

The word metamorphosis pops up in the Gospel reading we just listened to. You didn’t hear it because Julia read the lesson in English, but I swear it’s there. “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them.” And he was metamorphosed before them. In its humblest connotation, this word simply means “change.” And he was changed before them. But the intent is that the change is a revelation of who Jesus truly is. The metamorphosis that Jesus undergoes on the mountaintop reveals the dazzling, luminous person that God sees when God gazes upon God’s son.

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Sabbatical Notes, Week 6: Fantasy Bias

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Note: This week’s essay is a sample of what I’m working on during my sabbatical – a series of pieces in which I am interrogating my own past and looking for the societal underpinnings of my unconscious biases, especially in the realm of racism and white supremacy.

I have always loved fantasy and science fiction. Star Trek: The Next Generation is still, and probably always will be, my favorite TV show. As a young child, I watched Return of the Jedi until I wore out the VHS. In sixth grade I cut my long-form fantasy teeth on the Redwall series by Brian Jacques and The Hobbit. It took me three tries to get through The Lord of the Rings, but I finally did it in ninth grade, and then I read it every year for a decade. My senior year of high school, I read 35 Star Wars novels. Frank Herbert’s Dune blew my mind somewhere in there, but I can’t remember exactly when.

So it’s no secret I am a proud member of many fandoms: LOTR, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, the MCU, the whole Whedonverse (especially Buffy and Firefly). Engagement with some of these creative properties has shaped me from childhood. I learned the meaning of true friendship from Frodo and Sam. I learned the value of leadership with integrity from Captain Jean-Luc Picard. (And I learned the best way to sit down in a chair from Commander Riker.)

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The Airport Rule

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, July 8, 2018 || Proper 9B || Mark 6:1-13

When I was growing up, my parents instituted a family ordinance called “the airport rule.” The airport rule stated that whenever we were in a crowded place like an airport, we always had to be holding hands with another member of the family. Observing this safety measure meant we were less likely to get lost or (God forbid) snatched. All my parents had to do was call out, “Airport rule!” and Melinda and I immediately buddied up with them.

When I became a parent myself, I finally understood the genius of the airport rule. It wasn’t just about safety, though that was a big part of it. The airport rule also made our travel more efficient because, once buddied up, we had to walk at the parent’s pace instead of the child’s. And there was one more sneaky element of the airport rule that I would never have dreamt of when I was a kid. I’m certain my parents called out for the airport rule just because they liked holding our hands. There’s simply nothing like reaching down and finding those warm, little fingers to squeeze. Every time I hold my son’s or daughter’s hands, I can’t help but send up a prayer of thanks that God entrusted these two precious lives to Leah and me.*

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