October 27, 2013 - Proper 25C

Lectionary Readings

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

            What will be your legacy? In the final chapter of the pastoral epistle known as 2 Timothy, St. Paul writes “through me the message might be fully proclaimed.” As I reflected on our readings for today, that one line jumped out at me as I wondered, “what message am I proclaiming?” When we began hearing from the letters of 1 & 2 Timothy a few weeks ago, I mentioned that these letter were written to churches that were already established and were meant to encourage the believers, keeping them on the right track. 2 Timothy is a letter about community and passing the faith along to future believers and generations. And so the sort of message that was being proclaimed was of great importance to Paul and his audience.

October 13, 2013 - Proper 23C

Lectionary Readings

Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyrs triumph over suffering and are faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember them in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with them the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

            Let’s begin with some audience participation. Please raise your hand if you can name the prophet Muhammad’s mother. No one? I had to look it up, it’s Aminah bint Wahb. And if any of us had been in the Westland mall in Nairobi, Kenya two weeks ago, our inability to answer that question would have gotten us a bullet in the head, as it did our brother in Christ, Joshua Hakim. He was just one the nearly 70 people who were killed in that attack by the Boko Haram terrorist organization. And this attack, which specifically targeted non-Muslims and Christians, is just but one example of the plight that our brothers and sisters in Christ are facing around the world.

September 22, 2013 - Proper 20C

Lectionary Readings

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

            This fall, I’m going to take my sermons in a different direction. My focus will be a bit more inward than outward. Of the 19 sermons I’ve preached this year, 3 have had what you might call a prophetic edge; they have challenged our relationship of complicity with our flawed economic and political systems. And while I firmly believe that sometimes preaching a challenging sermon is called for, I realize that it can create an “us versus them” mentality.

We Can (and Should) Do Better

Recently a parishioner commented that most of my sermons revolve around one theme, sometimes subtlety and sometimes rather plainly. In this person's mind, the theme is that of priorities. Essentially, what comes first in our hearts, in our work, in our words? While I probably wouldn't have articulated my major theme as such, I can't disagree with the observation. I likely would have said that the Kingdom of God is my central theological tenet, but that really is about priorities. God has made us a priority with God's abundant grace and love, and the question we are faced with is- how will we respond? 

Syria, Just War Theory, and Faith

As you know, there is a crisis going on in Syria (CNN has a good overview of the situation) and this past weekend, President Obama informed the nation that "after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets... if we really do want to turn away from taking appropriate action in the face of such an unspeakable outrage, then we just acknowledge the costs of doing nothing...if we won't enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules?" Today, the news has come that many Congressional leaders are backing the President's call for Congressional support of any military action.

So what is the Christian response to all of this?

September 1, 2013 - Proper 17C

Lectionary Readings

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

            Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or in theological terms, are we called to orthodoxy or orthopraxy? Orthodoxy means right belief and orthopraxy means right action. That is do we listen to St. Paul who wrote “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing” or shall we listen to St. James when he says “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith...so faith without works is dead.” So which is it?

August 18, 2013 - Proper 15C

Lectionary Texts for the Day

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

The peace of God it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet let us pray for but one thing, the marvelous peace of God.

            Sometimes the hymn writers just get it, and that is certainly true for William Alexander Percy, the author of today’s sequence hymn. Today we get a view of Jesus that is unsettling. This isn’t Jesus as the shepherd of our souls, or Jesus the friend of sinners, this is a far more aggressive and angry Jesus than we’re accustomed to. This is a challenging Jesus, perhaps a Jesus that we wish would just keep his mouth shut. This Jesus makes us uncomfortable with words such as “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!... father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.”