Sermons

Homily November 18: St. Mark’s, Chester 11 am Proper 28 The end times We have entered into a peculiar time in the church year, at least it always strikes me that way, when we are approaching the last of a year-long sequence but the world around us is in some other place. It is in a mode of buying and selling. It is in a partying mode. Next Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year. It often happens that the readings we are hearing today occur just before Thanksgiving day as it does this year. Sometimes Thanksgiving is later and we would hear lessons for the last Sunday of the church year. Those lessons all have a theme having to do with the end-times, apocalyptic occurances, the big picture. The Thanksgiving readings, of course, reflect the tone of the day and are completely about thanksgiving for all the gifts that God has given us. It’s a day about gratitude. Often this Sunday appropriates such a tone. By design the gospels of the Sundays leading up to the last Sunday of ...

Proper 27 November 11: Ordinary Time, Proper 27 Epiphany, Spartanburg Since I last saw you, we have certainly traveled a long ways as a people. One thing I know of that has been huge in our family is that we have passed from the place where Mary Pat was anxious about my being away from the house long enough to come to Spartanburg and be with you – that was June – up until the present day when she is able to be with me as I come to celebrate with you. Oh, the wonders of what God is doing in our midst. As a nation we have traveled to the end of the midterms. I said in our morning prayer on Wednesday that I was grateful to have the whole campaigning experience be over even though I knew that the next campaign was beginning already that morning. When I was in my 20’s, the experience of having one generation in conflict with another seemed inconvenient but bearable . On the downward slide to the age of 70 I am weary of the pervasive rhetoric that pushes us apart, that encourages our...

Homily: November 4:Ordinary Time, Proper 26 st mark 11 am Introductions Thank you for the invitation to celebrate Eucharist with you, to give thanks for the work that God has done, is doing, and will do in your midst. Briefly, about myself. Hawai’i parishes in WI, IN, HI, and supply in NC & USC. Taught college in Indiana, Hawai’i, and SC. Currently an adjunct in Religion department at Winthrop. It’s because my wife, Mary Pat, got hired by the Math department to teach teachers how to teach Math that brings us to SC. This is my first time in Chester, SC. I have a smattering of input from people who have knowledge of your community. For one person it has been the center for them over many years of one of his chief passions: skydiving. The bishop has shared with me his perception that the people of this particular community are seriously engaged in doing “God’s work” in this place, making Christ known by serving God’s people. We drove around Chester on our way to obse...