November 2, 2022 - All Souls

Lectionary Readings

O God of the living and the dead, help us to wait in faith, hope, and love. Amen.

            “I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope. My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning,” so says the Psalmist. On All Souls, we watch and wait. We name the fact that the idiom “time heals all wounds” is a lie. We acknowledge that grief is never something we “get over,” but rather it is like a scar that reminds us of a wound. In a world that does not know how to sit in grief, on All Souls’ Day the Church says that such waiting is the holiest thing we can be doing.

November 1, 2022 - All Saints

Lectionary Readings

Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. Amen.

            A blessed Feast of All Saints to you all. On this holy day on which we celebrate the Communion of All the Saints, it is good to be with the saints of St. Luke’s Parish. There are some feasts, such as Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost on which we remember particular events, but on All Saints, we are not recalling something that happened in a particular place or time, rather we celebrate something that happens in the fullness of time. All Saints is the celebration of the beloved community of God. The icon that we dedicated earlier this year of the Feast of Pentecost can also be interpreted as an icon of All Saints because it portrays the wonderful and blessed diversity of the Body of Christ.

October 30, 2022 - The Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Thank you, O God of grace, for bringing us into your story of love through Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Stories are powerful. Our family is deep into the Star Wars universe and after watching each new episode of Andor, I can tell that the throttles of our imaginations are wide open. And what else is tomorrow all about? Yes, free candy. But the costumes allow us to enter into a different story than the one we normally inhabit. Even if it’s just for an hour, we can be a world-famous athlete, a superhero, an astronaut, or a dinosaur and live by a different story. Last weekend, we went to the Carolina Renaissance Festival, which is always fun. If you’ve never been, it’s a 25-acre medieval village filled with actors and attendees dressed as knights, princesses, goblins, and monks. The website describes it as “A day at the Festival is about leaving your cares behind and escaping to a simpler time and place.” In other words, it is about entering into a story.

October 23, 2022 - The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

God, be merciful to us sinners. Amen.

            Writing 1,000 years ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote, “you have not considered the weightiness of sin.” As we heard in Psalm 65, “Our sins are stronger than we are.” Other translations put it as “My deeds of mischief are too much for me” and “We are overwhelmed with our inequity.” Sin is one of those words that can often conjure up images of a wrathful god, inducing fear, guilt, and shame. And though we have a Confession each week in worship, and pray daily “forgive us our trespasses,” it does not mean that we have considered fully the weight of sin. Certainly, some traditions overly focus on sin, which is not what I am advocating for. But as someone who swings kettlebells six days a week, I can tell you that we can get into a whole lot of trouble if we don’t know how heavy the weight we’re working with is.

October 16, 2022 - The Feast of St. Luke & the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings for Proper 24C & The Feast of St. Luke

O God, in your abundant grace you sent your Son to be the light of the world: Grant that we may come and see the difference that Christ makes in each of us as we seek to become your beloved community; and as we gather in intentional worship, may we ever be reminded of your transformative love which is the foundation of our faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

            Today, we mark the Feast of St. Luke and as we remember this saint who wrote both Luke and Acts, we also celebrate this particular beloved community that bears his name. It was 8 years and a month ago that I was called to serve as the Rector of St. Luke’s and there’s not a day I don’t give God thanks for this call. This is such a fantastic parish – we have a gorgeous building, we have dedicated members, we have become known as a church of beloved community, the Foundation and mission committee help us in spreading the love of Jesus beyond our walls, our liturgies are vehicles for God’s grace and peace to be communicated to all, and, in all serious, this is pretty much a drama-free congregation. Truly, this is a special place and it is a blessing to be a part of it.

October 9, 2022 - The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Give us grateful hearts, O God of love, that we might receive your grace ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            The English poet and priest George Herbert wrote, “Thou hast given so much to me / Give one thing more – a grateful heart; / Not thankful when it pleases me, / As if thy blessings had spare days; / But such a heart whose very pulse may be / Thy praise.” When it comes to life and faith, grateful hearts make all the difference. When we receive as a gift, we are opened to the transformative power of God in our lives. And, when we are not grateful we end up with a lot of resentment, entitlement, and fear. Gratitude is a forgotten virtue, but it is one of the ways in which Christ makes all the difference.

October 2, 2022 - The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

O God of love, grant us the gift of your grace, mercy, and peace ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            We’re all here this morning because of faith. When times are tough, we sometimes hear “You’ve just got to have faith.” As an introduction to the Creed, I invite us to “proclaim our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.” In this morning’s reading from 2 Timothy, we heard St. Paul write of how the faith was passed down from grandmother Lois, to mother Eunice, and then to Timothy. But this all begs the question: what is faith?