Tag: Relationship

Noli Me Tangere

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Sermon for Sunday, March 31, 2024 || Easter Day B || John 20:1-18

Good morning and welcome to St. Mark’s Church for this special Feast of the Resurrection. Every Sunday is a feast of the Resurrection, but this one happens to fall on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. (That’s how you figure out when Easter is, by the way.) Yep, we date Easter by the movement of the celestial bodies that shine energy upon this planet and create the Earth’s heartbeat in the motion of the tides. I’ve always thought that was pretty cool, but it’s not what I want to talk about this morning. Rather, I’d like to zoom in on a single line of dialogue that Jesus speaks to Mary Magdalene in this morning’s beautiful reading from the Gospel according to John. “Do not hold on to me,” Jesus says. That’s the line we’re going to unpack on this special Feast of the Resurrection.

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Staying In

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Sermon for Sunday, March 17, 2024 || Lent 5B || John 12:20-33

I’ve always wondered what was on Jesus’ mind as he approached the last week of his earthly life. I wonder this because we face challenging times too, and imagining our way into the mind of Christ can help us navigate the necessary hardships of life. So today, let’s imagine our way into Jesus’ thoughts spurred by today’s Gospel passage. And then at the end, we’ll come back to our own thoughts as we face challenging times.

Jesus has just rode into Jerusalem on the back of the donkey. The crowds waved branches of palm and caused quite a ruckus during the parade. When he dismounts, two of his disciples, Philip and Andrew, bring some visitors to meet him. They are Greeks, who are in Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. Somehow, Jesus knows that these Greeks are the sign that his earthly ministry is almost at an end. Word of Jesus’ movement has spread far and wide. And the stunning thing about this movement is that it wasn’t designed to replace one empire with another. Above all else, Jesus yearns for people to be free – to be free to choose the light, to walk in the light, to be the light that shines on the Truth that sets free. 

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Simon, Lazarus, Philip, Mary

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Sermon for Sunday, April 9, 2023 || Easter Sunday A || John 20:1-18

Good morning and welcome to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on this cold and sunny Easter Sunday. I’m Pastor Adam Thomas, and today we are celebrating our tenth Easter together in this special place on Pearl Street. During the season of Lent, I preached a four-part sermon series on the verse John 3:16, which culminated in this new interpretation of the most famous verse in the Bible: 

For God so loved the entirety of Creation that God revealed God’s own self in the gift of God’s only Child: to draw us deeper into relationship with God, to find our place in God’s story of reconciliation, and to embrace the true life of God’s presence now and forever.

I’d like to spend today’s sermon offering a bit of a coda to the sermon series and speak again about God drawing us into deeper relationship. This makes sense to do on Easter Sunday because today is the day we celebrate God’s full and eternal embrace of Creation through the power of the Resurrection of Jesus.

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May Not Perish But May Have Eternal Life

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Sermon for Sunday, March 19, 2023 || Lent 5A || John 11:1-45

(Part Four of Sermon Series on John 3:16 – Part One – Part Two – Part Three)

Today we finish up our sermon series on John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Three weeks ago, we talked about God loving every nook and cranny of creation. Two weeks ago, we said that God gave the gift of God’s only son to show us how to enter into the story God is telling. Last week, we looked at the concept of belief as “abiding in relationship” with Jesus. And that brings us to the final phrase of John 3:16 – “may not perish but may have eternal life.”

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So that Everyone Who Believes in Him…

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Sermon for Sunday, March 19, 2023 || Lent 4A || John 9:1-41

(Part Three of Sermon Series on John 3:16 – Part One – Part Two)

Today we are going to continue our four-week sermon series on John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Two weeks ago, we talked about God loving every nook and cranny of the universe. Last week, we talked about what God did because God loved the universe; namely, God gave God’s only son to show us how to enter into the story God is telling. We’ll finish up the series next week, but first we’ll tackle the next phrase: “so that everyone who believes in him.”

The thrust of this sermon is very simple: Jesus will always be present. That’s the simple idea at the heart of this sermon. But I’ve got to warn you. I’m going to over-complicate things for a few minutes before returning to this simple and beautiful idea: “Jesus will always be present.”

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Other Sheep

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Sermon for Sunday, April 25, 2021 || Easter 4B || John 10:11-18

On Monday morning last week, the buds on the maple tree in front of my house appeared. They weren’t there last Sunday, and then – BOOM – there they were in all their potential glory. I knew they were coming in the vague sense that it was spring and that’s what happens to trees. But I hadn’t spared much thought as to when. And then, suddenly, there they were: skeletal sticks one day, green buds the next, like a quick costume change between scenes of a play.

At least that’s what I saw from my perspective. What about the tree’s perspective? What would we see if we imagined our way into that majestic maple? We would feel the slow return of warmth and sunlight that would get the sap moving again after the near dormant days of winter. We would explore deeper with our roots, seeking nutrients and water. We would spend weeks gathering and converting energy to power all the tiny interactions within our complex body to send forth those little green buds. Over the course of one night, the buds would slowly unfurl from the ends of their little flagpoles.

What looks to me like a spontaneous greening, the maple spent all winter preparing for. What looks to me sudden and surprising was for the maple slow and deliberate. What a difference our perspective makes.

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Three Kinds of Power (With a Lot of Help from Star Wars)

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Sermon for Sunday, October 4, 2020 || Proper 22A || Philippians 3:4b-14

Today, I want to talk about power. Like the word ‘love,’ we use the word ‘power’ to mean several things, which makes any discussion about power challenging. I’m going to move through three understandings of power, and I hope you will stick with me because the third one is the one we are aiming for. Also, I’m going to use Star Wars to illustrate the three types of power. (I’ve only used one Star Wars reference this year, so I’m well within my limits.)

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Everything I Have Ever Done

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Sermon for Sunday, March 15, 2020 || Lent 3A || John 4:5-42

The Samaritan woman leaves her water jar behind, rushes back to the city, and says to anyone who will listen, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” That’s a pretty astounding statement given the conversation she has just had with Jesus by the well. Many biblical scholars chalk it up to her excitement – the exaggeration is forgivable because of the encounter she just had with the Messiah. Others say that, given her station, she needs to exaggerate in order to be taken seriously. I think both of those ideas miss the point of the story entirely because they start from the premise that the woman is not being a reliable witness, is not simply telling the truth.

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Righteousness and Grace

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Sermon for Sunday, January 12, 2020 || Epiphany 1A || Matthew 3:13-17

Today, I’m going to talk about the concept of righteousness. The word “righteousness” is tricky because we almost never hear it decoupled from the word “self.” We all know it’s not a good thing to be self-righteous. It is, however, good to be righteous. But self-righteousness has such a monopoly on the concept of righteousness that we never take the time to understand what righteousness really is. So that’s what we’re going to do this morning. And we’re going there because of an odd exchange between Jesus and John the Baptist in today’s Gospel reading.

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Beyond Fear

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Sermon for Sunday, December 22, 2019 || Advent 4A || Matthew 1:18-25

At the end of this sermon, I’m going to talk about the movie Frozen II. But first let’s talk about fear. Whenever an angel of the Lord appears in Holy Scripture, the angel always begins the message for the same four words: “Do not be afraid.” Today’s Gospel lesson is no exception. Mary’s fiancé Joseph has resolved to “dismiss her quietly” because of her pregnancy, but he takes one more night to sleep on the decision. During that night, an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and says, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. My question is: Why would Joseph be afraid to do this? I can think of many reasons for Joseph’s fear, and I want to talk about three of them this morning. We’ll dispense with the first two quickly because the third is where I really want us to focus.

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