August 25, 2024 - The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious God, help us to always be at home in your love. Amen.

            I think we all realize how fortunate we are to be gathered in this gem of a space. As Psalm 96 puts it, “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” Because of this treasure that has been passed down to us, we are able to, indeed, worship the Triune God surrounded by beauty in a sacred space that is steeped in the holiness of generations of tears, celebrations, and prayers. Built in 1828 and expanded and renovated in 1883, 1909, 2003, and 2015, this building inspires our faith, surrounds us in sacredness, and forms us with beauty. Thanks be to God for this gift and for those who came before us; and we pray that we might be faithful stewards both of this space and the ministries rooted here.

August 18, 2024 - The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Help us, O gracious Lord, to behold what we are and become that which we receive: the Body of Christ given for the life of the world. Amen.

            In journalism, one of the rules is “don’t bury the lede.” In other words, to capture attention, get right to the point. Well, the point of this sermon is that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist in a unique and holy way, and this matters deeply. The rest of this sermon will be an exploration of what it means to say that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, why we say this, and what ‘difference this makes.

August 11, 2024 - The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious God, help us to learn and grow deeper into your love for us. Amen.

            Malala Yousafzai has an innate and God-given thirst for learning. She grew up in a Taliban-controlled region of Pakistan. These extremists forbid such things as owning a television, playing music, or allowing girls to attend school. Her father is a teacher, and so learning was as natural to her as swimming is to a fish. At age 11, Malala spoke out on behalf of girls and their right to learn. The Taliban tried, and failed, to silence her. But even a bullet to the head couldn’t stop her call for justice. In her acceptance speech as the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient ever, she said “Education is one of the blessings of life, and one of its necessities.” Indeed, education is a blessing and a necessity.

August 4, 2024 - The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

O God of all Creation, satisfy us with your love which is making all things well. Amen.

            When was the last time you can say that you were satisfied? Maybe after an excellently prepared meal? Completing a project that you’ve been working on for a while? Getting good test results back? Satisfaction is something retailers and businesses want from us – that’s why they ask us to complete satisfaction surveys. They want us to be satisfied because a satisfied customer is likely a repeat customer. And so we are promised that a particular energy drink will satisfy our thirst, or that we’ll find the softness of a shirt to be satisfying, or that we’ll be satisfied with the new gutters with leaf guards. Satisfaction, it seems, is everyone’s goal. After all, that’s why we go on vacation, purchase things, and do things for entertainment.

July 28, 2024 - The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

God of beauty and love, help us to grow further into your image in which we are made. Amen.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? For a lot of reasons, many people have a complicated relationship with the image they see in the mirror. As we heard in our Collect, the opening prayer for the week, we ask for God to help us to “pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.” It’s a prayer that asks God to help us focus on the things that matter most and let go of the things that aren’t so important. And so when you look in the mirror, there are two ways to see your reflection.

July 21, 2024 - The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Loving God, help us to trust in you more than we trust in ourselves. Amen.

            When it comes to most of life, if we’re honest, we have no idea what we’re doing. Almost twelve years ago, Tyler and I brought home a beautiful and wonderful daughter from the hospital, but she didn’t come with a manual, nor did her sister. As parents, we do our best, but there’s no way to know if what we’re doing is the right course of action. I was recently talking with someone who is struggling with a child in their early 20s in what we might call a “failure to launch” scenario. What’s the right response to motivate this young adult to get out of bed and off the video games – tough love or patience while they figure it out on their own? We pray, we get advice, we read books, but at the end of the day, we don’t know what we’re doing.

July 7, 2024 - The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Help us to trust and live as if your grace is sufficient for us, O Lord. Amen.

            I’m sure many of you remember the scene on January 6^th at the US Capitol building. A preacher stood in the shadow of the dome and prayed that America might become “one nation under God.” Christian hymns were sung, supposedly in a country whose Constitution forbids the establishment of a national religion, and prayers were offered which suggested that those on the other side had corrupted our nation. Only the event that I’m describing didn’t happen in 2021; I’m talking about the events of January 6, 2022, when mostly Democrats gathered to claim the moral high ground and the preacher they chose to offer assuring words of blessing on their political correctness was none other than our own Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry. Separated by one year, both January 6^th gatherings at the Capitol show us the problems of Christian Nationalism.