May 27, 2018 - Trinity B

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the holy and blessed Trinity ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            So how about Bishop Curry’s sermon at the Royal Wedding? If you’ve ever doubted the power of the Holy Spirit to move in this world, then the events of the last week are your cure. The experts tell us that people aren’t interested in religion, that our divisions are too rancorous to mend, that young people are only interested in rock bands and projection screens. But I didn’t see any of that in St. George’s Chapel – I saw a world captivated by the simple but profound message of God’s love.

May 20, 2018 - Pentecost B

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen ☩ Lord. Amen.

            Green tabling dogs clouds quick. I said, “green tabling dogs cloud quick.” That’s gibberish, and I have no idea what it means. While those are all words, they’ve been strung together in a meaningless way. Language is an amazing gift that has evolved in human society and allows us to communicate in such rich ways. While a picture might be worth a thousand words, even more amazingly, we actually have the ability to come up with those thousand words. Language is how we communicate, it is how we interpret the world, it is how we process our experiences, how we express ourselves. The point that I will attempt to make in this sermon is that faith is a language.

May 13, 2018 - Easter 7B

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen ☩ Lord. Amen.

            Have you ever heard someone create a word to fill in a gap in our language? Sometimes we just have to do this because the sense of the word we need doesn’t exist. This often happens when we turn a noun into a verb. Think of how sometimes people say “dialoguing” instead of “having a dialogue.” Linguists call this “verbing” or “verbification,” when we take a noun and turn it into a verb. In today’s Gospel text from John, there is a similar linguistic shift that happens between the Greek text and our English translation that obscures the implications for our faith.

May 10, 2018 - Feast of the Ascension

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen ☩ Lord. Amen.

            It’s a joy to be with you all this evening to celebrate the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. You all are here, so I don’t need to explain why it is so crucial to our faith to mark the Principal Feasts of the Church with solemn worship. But I do thank you for being here to help us in being the Church and marking sacred time.

May 6, 2018 - Easter 6B

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen ☩ Lord. Amen.

            “Sing to the Lord a new song.” That opening line of Psalm 98 is one of the more well-known lines from the Psalter and it exhorts us to “shout with joy to the Lord.” This Psalm reminds us that we are to be a people of joyful praise. There’s a novel in which a character says “You say you are a Christian. Then where the devil is your joy?” It’s a fair question – for too long, Christianity’s ambassadors have been puritanical and legalistic killjoys. This Easter season though prompts us to joyfully praise God.