Sermons

Sun, Aug 18, 2019 St. Peter’s, Great Falls Pentecost 10 – 08/18/2019 Cloud of witnesses There’s probably something that you enjoy doing just to relax. What is the thing that makes you feel good deep down inside when things haven’t been going great and you just need a break? The other day we saw something on TV where one of the characters experienced that. He was too overwhelmed with things and he announced that he would be gone for a while to go fishing. I thought to myself well now that’s a good manly thing to do and I have known people like that. Now I don’t mind going fishing but it’s never been a relaxing thing for me. There are so many things to think about gathering together just to get out the door; and I don’t really know what I’m doing; and it just becomes a chore. Mostly facetiously I turned to Mary Pat and asked if she wished that I was the kind of man who would go away fishing for a while just to relax and to get away from the pressures of life. And her response was ...

Sun, Aug 11, 2019 Chapel of Christ the King Back when I was still in my 20’s in Colorado, my parish priest invited me to a presentation by a monk by the name of William McNamara in the nearby town of Pueblo. He wrote about contemplative prayer and I was interested. We drove to the auditorium of a Catholic parish there and found our seats. There, sitting on dais was man with a huge beard, almost to his waist, wearing a cassock, carrying himself with a kind of awesome confidence in himself together with a contagious aura of submission to a mighty God. When he stood up and began to speak, I had the distinct sense that he was one of the Old Testament prophets who had walked right out of the Bible and into this auditorium. He sounded like a prophet. It was as if he announced, “Pay attention.” And he got my attention. I hear the words of God himself being spoken by the prophet this morning: From the opening of Isaiah : I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of we...

Sun, Jul 28, 2019 Our Saviour Proper 12 The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Color: Green Assigned Readings (Proper 12 ) Track One Lesson 1: Hosea 1:2-10 Psalm: 85 Track Two Lesson 1: Genesis 18:20-32 Psalm: 138 Lesson 2: Colossians 2:6-15,(16-19) Gospel: Luke 11:1-13 Introduction It just seemed to me wonderfully serendipitous when in the space of a week I read today’s gospel and someone who is very dear to me asked, “What are some bible references to help teach me how to pray.” I actually have given some thought to that question over the years, having been asked it, oh, maybe a 100 times or more. It took me back to when I tried to teach and model prayer to my children. I could remember my own grandmother teaching me prayers, including a German one from her childhood. Sometimes it seemed productive and sometimes not so much. Children and Lord’s prayer Take, e.g. these stories about children and the Lord’s Prayer: I had been teaching my three-year-old daughter, Caitlin, the ...