August 28, 2016 - Proper 17C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            The year was 597, and Augustine had just arrived in England after being commissioned to go there and preach the Gospel by Pope Gregory the Great. Of course, Christianity had already existed on the British Isles for a few hundred years by this point, but this was the event that brought British Christianity into the Roman Catholic Church, where it would remain for almost the next thousand years. By 601, Augustine’s mission was going so well that the king was converted and baptized. In 603, there was a conference held between Augustine, who was a bishop at this point, and the leaders of the congregations that had already existed in Britain.

August 21, 2016 - Proper 16C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            We all know that there are two kinds of stories. There are stories, and then there are stories that are more than stories. Stories such as me telling you about what I did on vacation are simply stories – there is no larger point to them. They might be informative, they might be entertaining, they might remind you of a similar experience, but they’re just a series of details. But there is a second kind of story, you might call it a fable, a myth, a legend, a parable. In these sort of stories, the details are just the skeleton that holds up the larger point or moral. Some stories are more than just a series of facts, but they are symbols which carry a meaning larger than themselves. The Bible is full of these second kind of stories, and today’s Gospel text is a story that is much more than just a story.

August 14, 2016 - Proper 15C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Have things ever not gone as you had planned? You prepared and practiced for the interview and wore your best outfit, but you didn’t get the job. You planned the perfect surprise party and had wonderful decorations ready, and then the rain came and washed it all away. You had been trying for years to get pregnant and it seemed like a miracle when the test was positive, and then there was a miscarriage. You kept the feuding family members apart and were ready to change the topic if it got heated, and still everyone will remember that family dinner because of the fight. You did everything you knew to do to teach your child about responsibility and making good decisions, and yet they ended up in jail. You tried every treatment and prayed every prayer, and your loved one still died. You studied hard and did every extracurricular activity you could manage, and you still got a rejection letter from your dream college. You loved your spouse and poured all of yourself into the relationship, but the marriage didn’t last. You prepared the soil, watered the seeds, pulled the weeds, but there just wasn’t any fruit on the vine. Sometimes, no matter how deeply your heart is invested in something, no matter how righteous your motives, no matter how hard you’ve worked, no matter how often you’ve prayed, things just don’t go as planned.

July 31, 2016 - Proper 13C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Last Sunday, I preached a sermon on the topic of prayer, as the Gospel text presented us with the Lord’s Prayer. But more than a handful of you asked me, “What in the world was going on in that reading from Hosea?” I was planning to preach on Hosea this week all along, but since there was so much interest last Sunday, allow me to recap our reading from Hosea last week as a way of moving into this week’s verses from that same book.

July 24, 2016 - Proper 12C

Lectionary Readings

Be with us, O Lord, for if you are with us, nothing else matters; and if you are not with us, nothing else matters. Amen.

            What is prayer? That is perhaps one of the most fundamental questions of our faith. And the deeper we go into that question about the nature of prayer, the more questions we end up with. Many of you know that I spent most of June at Sewanee, and while I was there I took a class on using poetry and fiction in preaching. One story that we read was called “The Question of Rain.” In it, a parishioner comes to the minster with an emergency – the severe drought that the town is going through has no end in sight. He asks the minister to consider doing a liturgy for rain on Sunday. The minister though is uncomfortable with the prospect of using an entire Sunday service to pray for rain, but says that he’ll be sure to include a plea for rain to be in the Prayers of the People. This doesn’t satisfy the parishioner.

July 17, 2016 - Proper 11C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            It is quite fitting that we have a Baptism today, as it partners perfectly with this morning’s reading from Colossians. Scholars tell us that verses 15-20, which are contained in the first paragraph of the reading in the bulletin, are an ancient hymn of the early Church. These verses would have been familiar to first generation Christians and is older than the book of Colossians itself. This song of the earliest Church was likely used at Baptisms that took place nearly 2,000 years ago in what is modern-day Turkey. So today, as we prepare to baptize Jacob Grey Storey into the Body of Christ, we are united to Christians throughout time and space as we consider this hymn about Christ’s Lordship.

July 10, 2016 - Proper 10C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            The parable of “The Good Samaritan” may be the most well-known passage in the entire Bible. We have hospitals, outreach organizations, and laws named after the “Good Samaritan.” Even the great cultural icon of the 90s, the television show Seinfeld used the image of the Good Samaritan in its final episode. We use that moniker, “Good Samaritan,” to denote selfless action – so people who go out of their way to help other people are called “good Samaritans.” The moral of the story ends up being “Help those in need.” But I’m not convinced that’s why Jesus told the story. After all, this is a parable, not a fable with a moral to it. Furthermore, the Old Testament is full of examples where God tells the people to help those in need. It’s not like Jews didn’t know that they were called to take care of their neighbors. Jesus doesn’t tell this parable as a way of saying “Be nice to other.” So, then, why might Jesus have told this parable?