Category Archives: sermons

Grace in Ordinary Time: A Sermon for Proper 5, 2010

Posted on by
Reply

Finally, things are beginning to settle down. We have entered that period of the church year known as Ordinary Time, the weeks after the Feast of Pentecost. We will be in Ordinary Time all the way through November, right up to the beginning of the next church year, which begins on the First Sunday of Advent. Since last December, we have been following, more or less, the life of Jesus from his birth, through his baptism, on to his death and resurrection. With our celebration of his Ascension and Pentecost, when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit, we turn our attention away from Jesus’ nature, his life and death, and turn toward his teachings and his ministry among the people of the Roman territory of Palestine in the first century.

Continue reading →

A sermon on Proper 5 I preached in 2007

Posted on by
Reply

I reread this sermon as I began work this week and thought it deserved posting, largely because in it I share some of my earlier experiences of ministry with the homeless, from the vantage point of a suburban parish.

Proper 5_YrC

St. James

June 10, 2007

When I was growing up, our rural Mennonite Church had as one of its outreach projects, providing a monthly service at the Cherry Street Mission in downtown Toledo, Ohio. I don’t remember now how many times our family went, but to the best of my recollections it must have been several times a year when I was a preteen. It was an old style mission, where those who wanted something to eat and a bed for the night, first had to sit through whatever kind of worship service we put on. It was of course a cultural conflict of enormous proportions. We were well-off, white, Mennonite, small town and rural folk; the people at the mission were urban, overwhelmingly African-American, predominantly alcoholic and homeless. We didn’t provide the meal, we didn’t help out with the soup kitchen; we simply gave our hour-long worship service, and got back in our cars and drove the forty-five miles home.

Continue reading →

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday, 2010

Posted on by
Reply

Trinity Sunday

May 30, 2010

Today is Trinity Sunday. It’s the one day in the church year when our focus is not on the ministry or teaching of Jesus Christ. Instead, our attention is drawn to one of the central doctrines of our faith—the belief that God is Three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is that doctrine which separates us most clearly from our fellow monotheists, Jews and Muslims. The Trinity deserves at least one sermon a year, because of its importance and its complexity.

Continue reading →

Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost, 2010

Posted on by
Reply

May 23, 2010

Have you got the spirit? Do you feel the Spirit? What’s your reaction when you hear the verses of Acts read on Pentecost, where Luke describes the coming of the Holy Spirit? When I’m in my most cynical mood—one of my character traits I’ve tried to suppress becoming a priest—I get a perverse pleasure from comparing life in a typical Episcopal congregation with Luke’s description of the early Christian community in Acts. Throughout his history of the first generations of Christianity, Luke stresses the amazing things that were accomplished—the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, the miracles that leaders performed, the rich prayer life, and the close community. But of all the things Luke mentions about that early community, the biggest difference may lie here, right at the beginning.

Continue reading →

Disappearing Feet: A Homily for the Feast of the Ascension

Posted on by
Reply

May 13, 2010

I’ve been thinking about the Ascension these past few weeks in preparation for tonight’s Evensong. I keep reflecting on the oddness of the doctrine of the ascension. It may the aspect of the church’s teaching about Jesus Christ with which we have most difficulty in the twenty-first century. It’s not that the Incarnation or Jesus’ death and resurrection are easy to accept. Rather, I think it’s because both Christmas and Easter have enough cultural significance and liturgical drama that we are able to lay aside most of our doubts and questions, at least most of the time.

Continue reading →

Stories: Beginnings, Endings, Middles– A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Easter

Posted on by
Reply

May 9, 2010

A few weeks ago, the prominent New Testament scholar Elaine Pagels gave a lecture at the University on the cultural impact of the Book of Revelation. Pagels came to prominence for her work on the Gnostic gospels. More recently, she has published a fascinating memoir/reflection entitled Beyond Belief. I attended the lecture largely out of curiosity, because I had no idea that she had turned her scholarly attention to the Book of Revelation. It was an interesting lecture in some respects; certainly I did learn a few things, but it was also misleading.

Continue reading →

The Heavenly City

Posted on by
Reply

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Easter 5, Year C

May 2, 2010

What’s your idea of heaven? My guess is, if you were to tell me, what you would describe would be a scene filled with images from nature; with beautiful scenery, pleasant breezes, and the like. Perhaps your image would largely be derived from Psalm 23, which we recited last week: “He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters.”

Continue reading →

Green Pastures and Still Waters: A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

Posted on by
Reply

Green Pastures and Still Waters

Easter 4, Year C

Grace Church

April 25, 2010

I’m not at all sure why, but this Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, includes readings about sheep and shepherds in all three years of the lectionary cycle. The gospel reading each year for this day comes from the tenth chapter of John, which begins with Jesus’ familiar saying, “I am the good shepherd.” Each year, too, the psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd.” If you’re a long-time church goer, the imagery of the Good Shepherd may be so familiar to you that it has become banal, even meaningless.

This, despite the fact that unlike the cultures in which the biblical texts were written, sheep and shepherds are not the stuff of ordinary experience any more. The only time most of us encounter sheep of any variety is when it appears on our dinner plate. And who among us has ever encountered a real, live shepherd?

Continue reading →

Let’s go fishing: A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter

Posted on by
Reply

Let’s Go Fishing

Easter 3, Year C

Grace Church

April 18, 2010

Easter season is such a joyous time. Everything around us proclaims the reality of new life, new life in Christ and new life in the world. It’s not just Easter. Yesterday Madison was a whirl of activity—everything from the opening of the Summer Farmer’s Market on the Square, to the Wisconsin Film Festival, to yes, the Spring Football game at UW. Flowers and trees are in bloom, and we’ve had some temperatures that are more summer-like than typical April.

Continue reading →

Surprised by Easter

Posted on by
Reply

Surprised by Easter!

Easter Day

April 4, 2010

Grace Church

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

How many times has it happened to you? You’re driving down a road you’ve driven a hundred or a thousand times—perhaps it’s a commute you’ve made every day for years—and one day, for whatever reason, you look out the window and see a house, or building, or sign that you’ve never seen before. How long has it been there? You have no idea.

Continue reading →