April 17, 2016 - Easter 4C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.

            Wasn’t Easter a magnificent day at St. Luke’s? The azaleas were in full bloom, the music was outstanding, the church was full of people, and we baptized three young girls. Easter was magnificent. Then Easter Monday came; and it’s not that Easter Monday was a particularly bad day, but it wasn’t quite a grand as Easter. On Easter we shouted with gusto the victory cry of “alleluia!” and we talked about how God conquered sin, death, pain, and evil in Jesus’ Resurrection. But then on Easter Monday, when we opened the newspaper or got on Facebook, we were reminded that our world is still full of sin, death, pain, and evil.

Seth Tinsley

Homily from Seth Tinsley's funeral

April 16, 2016

Readings: Isaiah 61:1-3; Psalm 42:1-7; Revelation 7:9-17; John 14:1-6

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

            “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” says Jesus in the reading we just heard from John. But how can our hearts not be troubled? We gather this morning to liturgically mark the death of a great father, friend, son, husband, who died far too young. I know that my heart is troubled this morning, and I don’t think I’m the only one here who feels that way. As much as we may want it to be, faith is not an epidural to numb us from the pains of life. We’ve all heard the cliché that the way to move forward is to take things one day at a time, one step at a time. But how do we move forward with troubled hearts?

April 10, 2016 - Easter 3C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.

            The Book of Common Prayer, drawing from Scripture, states that the mission of the Church is to “restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” In other words, the mission of the Church is reconciliation. Reconciliation is what the Easter season is all about – reconciling the dead to eternal life; reconciling sin to forgiveness; reconciling those who denied Jesus to the grace of the Holy Spirit. Reconciliation is about restoring things which have gone astray, about setting things rights. So you might say that doing the work of reconciliation is to do the work of justice, and that is what our readings today are all about.