Sermons

Homily: Marriage of Pierson Payne & Grace Neill 29 December 2018 I began thinking about this homily many months ago. I have to tell you it’s a lot earlier than I usually do for normal Sunday sermons. My intention was to present Grace & Pierson with a charge that they might take with them as the begin their married life together. I wanted it to be right. I wanted it to be lovely and powerful. For I really like these two people. When I was in graduate school at Notre Dame, Bernard Cooke was regarded by some as an important theologian. He died in 2013 having made a huge contribution to the way in which we talk about God and God’s relationship to the Church, about the sacraments and how a sacramental view of the world is at the heart of what it means to be Church. When I first encountered him it was in the context of his understanding that all human life is essentially sacramental – i.e. human beings by nature reveal and make manifest God’s prese...

Homily – The First Sunday of Advent December 2, 2018 St. John’s, Winnsboro Opening I’ve prepared enough Advent sermons to remember a time that one of the main challenges was to get people to think in terms of apocalyptic , end of times , the day of judgment , and so on. When I first began preaching many people, myself included, would primarily associate such thinking with the crackpot who stood on the soapbox stand in the middle of Times Square and called out to everyone and no one in particular, “The end is coming. The end is coming.” Jesus message: “your redemption is drawing near” when you see these things. Jesus addresses his followers and says look around you. What do you see. Do you see terrible things happening? Terrible things on the horizon? Does it seem like the present course of things can’t be sustained? Well, he says, you’re right. Redemption is near at hand. Look around and see the “signs of the times”. That is look at the fig tree … pay attention … pray for stre...