Sermons

Homily: St. Peter’s Proper 6: June 17, 2018 David In our first reading we hear the account in spare but powerful language of the prophet Samuel choosing the next king for the people of Israel, replacing Saul who – well, didn’t work out so well. This is pivotal point in the historical cycle that in former days we wouldn’t have heard from. The whole cycle runs from Joshua / Judges through 2 Kings and is know as the Deuteronomistic History. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. I have been preaching from the Episcopal lectionary for well over 30 years now. I have experience of Episcopal preaching going back to the Prayer Book of 1928. I am especially glad for the shift that has occurred – just in th...

Homily: Proper 5 Our Savior: Rock Hill lectionary Texts “Kingdom divided against itself” “Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit” “Who are my mother and brothers?” Here are my mother and my brothers (doing the will of God) Episcopalians united These words from the gospel of Mark are challenging. They speak to Jesus’ perception that his followers are divided against themselves. Evidently some think that they are on the inside track to his sympathy and compassion – which leaves others on the outside. Evidently they have lost a focus on doing God’s will. From the beginning, evidently, Jesus’ disciples were not just a simple band of followers with a common mind, a common purpose, a common bond. Jesus had to cajole them, remind them, "Hey folks, let’s all get on board the same ship. Thinking that there were, of course, some basic things about which Episcopalians would be united. I have more than once be...

May 13: The Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after the Ascension (Mother’s Day) – St. Paul’s? lectionary The Collect O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before the lot fell on Matthias 1 John: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. John 17: And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. We have just heard a small slection from the very long address that Jesus gives his disciples on his last night with them – as related in the gospel of John. The “Final Discourse.” In this long address he tells them that he will be leaving soon – in the gospel tomorrow he wi...

May 13: The Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after the Ascension (Mother’s Day) – St. Paul’s? lectionary We have just heard a small slection from the very long address that Jesus gives his disciples on his last night with them – as related in the gospel of John. The “Final Discourse.” In this long address he tells them that he will be leaving soon – in the gospel tomorrow he will be executed – and that the Holy Spirit will be given to them as a comfort in the absence of his death. In the final section – which we hear from today – he prays for them. His prayer for them – for us – is that while one part of the relationship is coming to an end, another more wonderful one is about to begin. Themes of Ascensiontide: Last week we were anticipating Ascension and I said here that there would be time to deal with Ascension when this Sunday rolled around. The 40th day of Easter has come and gone and here we are....

May 19, 2018, St. James, Las Cruces, NM: Funeral for Helen Marie Swanson Detwiler Opening Thank you to the interim rector and the people of St. James for the invitation to preach the homily at this – my mother’s funeral. I really didn’t have to think very hard about my answer to the question about whether I would like to preach. I knew, I know, that it meant a lot to her that I was a priest. After saying “Yes,” – at the next moment, I must tell you, I thought “What in the world am I going to say”? These past 4 years, as I have been traveling about North and South Carolina, supplying on Sunday mornings in churches that need a substitute priest, a number of folks have asked me if I repeated my sermons? I answer them with a clear response, “No.” That is clearly the case today. The truth is, I have never preached at my mother’s funeral before. I don’t have any sense of how to do that. So this is all experimental . We have just heard the gospel proclaim that there are “many mansio...

Homily: 5th Sunday of Easter April 29, 2018 lectionary Homily The 8th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles opens right in the middle of amazing things happening as the witnessing and preaching of the Risen Lord began to spread. It’s sort of like how we find ourselves today, listening to texts that are chosen because we are well into the season of Easter, not yet at the end, and it’s been going on for weeks. But it’s not the end yet. In the midst of life. I’m not sure when I first became enamored of this little vignette involving Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. I really think it began in my youth. On his way home an Ethiopian eunuch – that is to say an VIP, an important person – you know you can tell those kind of folks by the clothes they wear and the way the carry themselves. And you can tell by the car they drive. He drove a really classy chariot . In today’s world, I guess, it would be a classy private jet. Well, he was driving his chariot and reading Isaiah at the same time....

Homily: St. Paul’s Easter 3 Lectionary I’m not sure when the passage I have just read became embedded in my senses and memory. It had to be after the period when my siblings and I would spend several weeks in the summer with some friends of ours. They had rented a cabin on a lake / reservoir just outside Rock Mountain National Park. They had a boat and fished. My father was not an outdoors man but he had enough sense that he wanted his children to be exposed. I learned to waterski there. I learned to fish there. And I had my first – and really my only experience of frying a rainbow trout over a campfire as the sun rose over the majestic Rocky Mountains. All of that combined made for a very full sensory symphony. I can smell and taste that fish to this day. At some point I associated that memory with this passage from Luke and the similar one from the last chapter of John. At some level, Whenever I eat fish I think of Jesus revealing himself to his disciples in ...