November 26, 2023 - Christ the King

Lectionary Readings

O Lord our Shepherd, help us to receive and live by your grace. Amen.

            Last Sunday, I preached about how we read Scripture, particularly when it’s a difficult text. A week ago, the text was the passage just before today’s – often called the Parable of the Talents. A master was going away and gave money to three of his slaves. Two doubled the money, but one buried it in the ground to make sure that his master’s money would not be at risk. When the master returned, he praised the two who gained money and called the other one a “worthless slave” and ordered him to be thrown into the outer darkness. That’s a tough parable.

November 23, 2023 - Thanksgiving Day

Lectionary Readings

Gracious God, give us grateful hearts that we might participate in your grace. Amen.

            What is the purpose of Thanksgiving? Yes, the holiday I get – it used to be a way to mark the start of the holiday season. But, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, now Halloween functions as the time when the wreaths and holiday decorations go up. And that’s fine. It’s a way to stimulate economic spending. Thanksgiving has become a holiday about a parade, a meal, and sales. But we know that this is not how it began.

November 19, 2023 - The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who live and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

            That Collect is one of the many gems of the Prayer Book. Written for the first Prayer Book in 1549, it both represents and forms how Anglicans have approached Scripture for centuries. As Anglicans, Scripture is at the very heart of who we are and how we pray. The vast majority of the prayers of our tradition are either quotations of or allusions to Holy Scripture. And our worship, whether it be Morning or Evening Prayer or the Sunday Eucharist is saturated with Scripture – as we typically read a passage from the Old Testament, New Testament, Gospels, and a Psalm every Sunday. While our tradition values and emphasizes tradition and reason, it is Scripture that serves as the foundation of our worship and theology, and this Collect beautifully encapsulates and expresses this.

November 2, 2023 - All Souls

Scripture Reading 

In the name of the one who is Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ. Amen.

            By now, you all know that I think that All Souls is one of the most sacred days we mark as Christians. We live in a world that doesn’t know what to do with grief and that avoids talking about death at all costs. Death, and the grief and fear associated with it, is something that none of us can escape. Either we confront the reality of death and find the way through it, or we shall be consumed by the dread and fear of it. This is precisely what All Souls helps us to do – to be counter-cultural in the fact that we name that death is painful and that grief does not go away with time, and to, at the same time, profess our hope in the love of God which is more enduring and everlasting than the grave.

November 1, 2023 - All Saints

Lectionary Readings

For all the saints who are models for us in the beloved community of God’s grace, we give thanks ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

            In the letter of First John, we heard “what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him.” In other words, we are becoming something; we are growing in Christ. Through Creation, God is working to bring all things to their culmination and perfection in the love of God. Until that day when the swords are beaten into ploughshares, when the lion and lamb lie down together, when all has been made well, all of Creation is moving towards that end.