April 21, 2024 - The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Lectionary Readings 

Keep us in the fellowship of your love, O God. Amen.

            Throughout the Sundays of Eastertide, the sermons have been focusing on the readings from First John, a letter written by and for the early Church. We’ve been noticing how the letter aims to foster a sense of fellowship with God, which comes through our interactions with one another. Whether it's relationships, theology, technology, or politics, so often our disagreements and misunderstandings come about when we aren’t clear about definitions. We say one thing, but someone hears something else. We might actually be saying the same thing, but based on our vocabulary, we think we’re on opposite sides. So before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to the idea of “fellowship.”

April 14, 2024 - The Third Sunday of Easter

Lectionary Readings

Risen Lord, keep us in the fellowship of your love. Amen.

            In the pastoral aspects of being a priest, I have the sacred privilege and duty of being with people who are struggling. And while suffering is suffering and there is no way to compare different types of struggles, dementia is certainly one of the cruelest and most devasting of struggles. When someone starts to lose their sense of who they are, it is often experienced as a death before death comes. Memories fade, personalities change, and connections are eroded. It can be a scary, disconcerting, and frustrating experience on all sides. I’m thankful for the researchers who are trying to better understand the human mind in hopes of providing a cure, and I pray for their success. Indeed, there is something tragic about forgetting who we are.

April 7, 2024 - The Second Sunday of Easter

Lectionary Readings

Risen Lord, keep us in the fellowship of your love. Amen.

            The Prayer Book teaches us that “All Sundays of the year are feasts of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Through the centuries, many have said that “every Sunday is a little Easter,” drawing on St. Augustine who called Sundays a “sacrament of Easter.” And while, theologically and liturgically speaking, that might true – we can also admit that the difference between last Sunday and today is obvious. There are decidedly less seersucker, fewer people, and not as much energy in the air. Yes, if every Sunday is a little Easter, the “little” stands out on the Second Sunday of Easter.

March 31, 2024 - Easter Sunday

Lectionary Readings

Risen Lord, give us ears to hear and eyes to see your new creation all around us. Amen.

            In the name of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ, welcome. It warms my heart and puts a smile on my face to see each of you here. Regardless of who you are, what your story is, or what you’ve been dealing with recently, it is a joy and blessing to have you here. God has brought us together this morning as this manifestation of the beloved community. Maybe you were here for every single liturgy during Holy Week, perhaps this is your first time in a church in a long time, maybe you are watching online, it could be that you’re not exactly sure why you’re here – something, or someone, nudged you to be here. As we heard St. Peter say in the reading from Acts, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” Indeed, it is an honor to have each of you here to help us celebrate Easter more fully.

March 30, 2024 - Easter Vigil

Help us to always hear that same old song of your saving love, O God. Amen.

            There are so many wonderful aspects of our Prayer Book tradition. Through the centuries, the Book of Common Prayer has been revised, and sometimes certain prayers don’t make it into subsequent versions. This sermon is framed by one such prayer that was composed for the first Prayer Book in 1549. And it really will function like a frame – I’m not going to spend much time talking about the frame, just as we generally focus on the painting, not the frame, in a museum. But the frame is what holds it all together. This a prayer for those being baptized:

March 30, 2024 - Holy Saturday

Lectionary Readings

O God, you are so often found in silence, help us to watch and wait as the faithful myrrh bearers did at the tomb of your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Psalm 62 opens with “For God alone my soul in silence waits.” One mystic has said that the purpose of spoken prayers is to take us to a place of deep silence with God. And when the prophet Elijah was waiting for a word from the LORD, we are told that “the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”

March 29, 2024 - Good Friday

Lectionary Readings

Gracious God, help us to look upon the Cross and see the love that makes all things well. Amen.

            This Holy Week, the sermons have all been focusing on one character each day. By focusing on the very real people of Holy Week, we find our place within the great drama of our salvation that unfolds this week. On Good Friday, we fix our attention on Jesus.

March 28, 2024 - Maundy Thursday

Lectionary Readings

O God of love, help us to find our place in the holy drama of this week, that we might encounter anew the grace and wonder of our salvation. Amen.

            Tonight, we enter into the Triduum, the three most sacred days in the Christian calendar on which we enter anew into the story of Jesus’ Last Supper, arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and Resurrection. Though our watches and calendars might tell us that it is the evening of March 28, 2024 – we are inhabiting holy time. Through Scripture, Sacrament, and community, we are entering into God’s timeless presence. Our worship over these next three days plunges us into the love and drama of that first Holy Week.

March 27, 2024 - Holy Wednesday

Lectionary Readings

O God of love, help us to find our place in the holy drama of this week, that we might encounter anew the grace and wonder of our salvation. Amen.

            As we continue to consider the characters of Holy Week, tonight we consider the one we might call the antagonist of the week: Judas Iscariot. Though, to consider him the antagonist is an interpretative move and not necessarily something that is quite as clear as we might think. It really comes down to who we see as the director of Holy Week. Does Jesus end up on the cross because that is where Jesus’ prophetic mission and the sinful nature of power-hungry people intersect, or was the cross the divine destination from the beginning of creation? Put differently, is Judas really the antagonist of Holy Week, or simply a pawn in God’s plan of salvation?

March 26, 2024 - Holy Tuesday

Lectionary Readings

O God of love, help us to find our place in the holy drama of this week, that we might encounter anew the grace and wonder of our salvation. Amen.

            One of the intriguing aspects of Holy Week is that it all happens in public. A parade into Jerusalem, an episode in the Temple, run-ins with authorities in the streets and festivals, culminating in a public arrest, trial, and execution. It allows us to wonder what we might have done if we were there. Would we have noticed Jesus and the commotion he was stirring up? Would we have been so busy with our tasks and conversations that we wouldn’t have noticed? Would we have decided to just mind our own business and not worry about what he and his disciples were up to? Would we have understood the heavenly significance of what was going on around us?

            On Palm Sunday, the sermon focused on the Je

March 25, 2024 - Holy Monday

Lectionary Readings

O God of love, help us to find our place in the holy drama of this week, that we might encounter anew the grace and wonder of our salvation. Amen.

            What does love smell like? Perhaps the aroma of a freshly baked apple pie at Grandma’s house? Maybe coming home to the smell of a recently cleaned and lemon-fresh house? The perfume or cologne of a lover? The scent of spring flowers? One poet has said, “Smells are surer than sights or sounds to make your heartstrings crack.” And it’s true. The sense of smell, for many of us, is the most evocative. So what does love smell like?

March 24, 2024 - Palm Sunday

O God of love, help us to find our place in the holy drama of this week, that we might encounter anew the grace and wonder of our salvation. Amen.

            The best storytellers have a way of creating space for everyone to enter into the story. The way this is usually accomplished is through characters that we can imagine being friends with, or running into around town, or maybe even being ourselves. When we connect with a character, we enter into the story and the story becomes more than education, where we learn something, and more than entertainment, where we enjoy the story. What happens when we connect is that we enter the story on an emotional level; the story gets into our heart and gut, and from there, a story can achieve its highest purpose – transformation.

March 17, 2024 - The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Lectionary Readings

By our intentional worship, comfort us with your grace, O God. Amen.

Have you ever wondered why it is that some people seem to be fed by coming to church and others aren’t? Well, if you haven’t, don’t worry – I’ve wondered enough for the both of us. While I don’t want to claim that I have “the” answer to that question, I do have at least one response. And it’s simply that we cannot control what we believe. I know that we don’t like to hear that, but it’s the truth. Just as we cannot control whether or not something makes us angry or happy, we cannot control what we believe to be true. Yes, of course, we can always have experiences that change our minds, but we don’t get to decide which pieces of information will change our minds. Faith is in this category of things that we are not in control of.

March 3, 2024 - The Third Sunday in Lent

Lectionary Readings

Help us, loving God, to walk the way of the Cross and find it to be the way of abundant life. Amen.

            You all know that along with Jim Greene and Edward Norvell, I am a member of the leadership team for Racial Equity Rowan – a group that is committed to bringing conversations and workshops about racial healing to our community. We began our work in 2019 and, since then, I’ve attended many 2-day workshops as a member of the team. I’ve lost track of how many, I think it’s 12 workshops that I’ve been to. And while I’m nowhere near an expert on the topic, after a dozen workshops, things begin to sink in.

February 18, 2024 - The First Sunday in Lent

Lectionary Readings

Gracious God, just as Jesus put his trust in you, help us to look to you for help. Amen.

            “In God we trust.” You can find that phrase on license plates, government buildings, police cars, and printed US currency. If you want to hear my thoughts about what that phrase is doing on our money, we can get a cup of coffee or a pint sometime to discuss it, but that’s not the point of this sermon. Instead, I have an even more basic question for us to ponder: what does it mean to trust God?

February 14, 2024 - Ash Wednesday

Lectionary Readings

Help us to tell the truth about ourselves, that in doing so, we might find ourselves to be grounded in your love, O God. Amen.

            I realize that this might sound a bit strange, but I love the doctrine of Sin. That doesn’t mean that’s the only teaching of the Church that I find attractive and helpful; I’m also a big fan of Grace and salvation, but I also really appreciate the Christian understanding of Sin. A lot of people, especially in The Episcopal Church, have an aversion to the doctrine of Sin. They would say that it’s just so negative, oppressive, and condescending. But not me, I love the doctrine of Sin.

February 11, 2024 - Quinquagesima

Lectionary Readings

Transfiguring God, give us glimpses of your glory that we live in faith, hope, and love. Amen.

            Sometimes a glimpse is all you need. A lot of us keep photos of family around to remind us of who we love and who loves us. Soldiers and police officers often have a picture of their family tucked into a pocket, or we have a picture of our spouse, children, or grandchildren as the wallpaper on our phones. And when we catch a glimpse of that photo, it becomes something like our north star, our reminder of why it is we’re off to work at a job we don’t particularly want to be at, or makes us excited for when we’ll get to see them again.

February 4, 2024 - Sexagesima

Lectionary Readings

Help us, O Lord, to speak and live in ways that draw people toward your love. Amen.

            What is inside of you that God is summoning forth? That’s a question that came up recently in a conversation. Someone was asking me if I’ve ever considered writing a book. And I say, yes, I’ve considered it. But I just don’t have it in me. I’ve heard many authors say before that what allows them to write a book is that the book is inside them and they couldn’t hold it in if they tried. Sure, anyone can write a bad book. But to write something that really connects and resonates, that can’t come from within us, it has to be something that the Spirit gives to us and then, like an embryo, gestates within us until we can’t hold it in any longer and it bursts out into the world.

January 28, 2024 - Septuagesima

Lectionary Readings

Help us, O God of love, to welcome Jesus into the whole of our lives. Amen.

            On what authority are you doing this? That’s a question that most of us have probably asked or been asked. We live in a society that has trained us to value autonomy above pretty much everything else. The right to self-determination is written in our psyches. We see ourselves as the consumers who have the power of choice, as directors who have the power of control, as constituents who have the power of a vote. And while autonomy is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s also an illusion because the harsh reality is that we aren’t really in control.

January 21, 2024 - The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Lectionary Readings

Gracious God, forgive the sins of the preacher, for they are many; that only your Word may be proclaimed and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

In most artistic endeavors, being repetitive isn’t often a virtue. If Van Gogh only painted vases of yellow flowers, he probably wouldn’t be remembered. If Shakespeare only changed the names of the characters in his plays, but not the dialogue, we wouldn’t know his name. If every song recorded by Bruce Springsteen was just a re-release of “Born in the USA,” he wouldn’t sell out even the smallest of concert venues. But I hope to be remembered as a one-trick pony, as a preacher who only had one thing to say, as someone who just repeated the same old song.

January 14, 2024 - The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Lectionary Readings

Let us pray… Amen.

            Faith is about hearing. That does not mean that thoughts, emotions, sight, smell, taste, and touch aren’t involved, but faith is primarily about hearing. When it comes to God’s self-disclosure to us, God is lovingly loquacious. God has a lot to say, meaning we have a lot to hear. And, to be clear, I’m not restricting this to auditory hearing. Those who are dealing with hearing loss or deafness can, without question, be people of faith who still very much hear the voice of God. Faith is about a word that is spoken from the beautiful and infinite love of God directed towards us.

            It’s no accident that when God has something to say, we are sent prophets with a message. When God chose to come among it, John describes it as the “Word becoming flesh.” The story of Jesus is called a “Gospel,” which translates to “Good News.” The story of Jesus is news to hear about. And as St. Paul puts it in one of his letters, “faith comes by hearing.” What this means for us is that, as people of faith who are seeking to be in tune with God, the Christian life is a life of listening.

January 7, 2024 - The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord

Lectionary Readings

Lord Jesus Christ, you prayed for us, that we might be all be one as you and the Father are one. Help us to work through our divisions and hold fast to what we hold in common, that we might become your beloved community ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Last Sunday, I preached about how having the Incarnation of Jesus at our center makes us distinctive as Anglicans. The core conviction that Jesus, the Son of God, lived and died a human life influences how we view Creation, mystery, and ourselves. Several people mentioned that they found it to be helpful in understanding who we are as Episcopalians, so if you missed it, do go back and read or listen to it. Today’s sermon is the counter-balancing corrective to that sermon.

January 6, 2024 - The Feast of the Epiphany

Grant us, Lord, the lamp of charity which never fails, that it may burn in us and shed its light on those around us, and that by its brightness we may have a vision of that holy City, where dwells the true and never-failing Light, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

            “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.” The prophet Isaiah tells those who live in darkness that there is a dawning light of hope. It was a message of hope for the people thousands of years ago, and it remains one for us as well.