Sermons

Homily 2 Epiphany – St. Paul’s Monroe Jan. 19, 2020 Opening Last week you may have heard me say that one of the reasons I became an episcopalian was that this church had wine in a single chalice and it burned real candles. I actually associate that with a particular service, Feb. 2 or Candlemas . That used to be a commonly celebrated evening service that featured – drum-roll, candles . I know that wasn’t the first time I had been in an Episcopal Church. My uncle was the organist for the Cathedral in Quincy, Illinois. My earliest memory from that time was that the priest spent the entire sermon explaining why the Episcopal flag was on a higher step than the American flag. I wasn’t impressed with that. Even as a 7-8 year old I had an intuition that the Gospel was about more than that. But I remember from a later period the candles and the chalice. I thought, “Now that’s the real deal!” Light . Somehow real light as opposed to the artificial light of electric light bulbs. It wasn’t...

January 12:The First Sunday After the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ St. Paul’s, Monroe NC Opening Today we will be baptizing a child at the 10:30 Eucharist. Jameson Alexander Honeycutt by name. I will present today a very quick overview of the growth of my understanding of baptism. I am addressing all those who will be supporting Jameson in his journey of life. If he were about 20 years older I would address these remarks to him. I take this approach not because my faith journey is particularly important. But to illustrate that baptism for ask of us is a lifelong journey. Perhaps a pilgrimage. When I was a teenager I gave very little thought to baptism. My mother and my siblings all went to church every Sunday. I don’t think however that I saw very many baptisms because in those days baptisms were done outside of the Sunday service. Baptism was a private affair and indeed I think regarded primarily as a transaction between God and the infant. It was general pract...

January 5:The Second Sunday After Christmas Day St. Paul’s, Monroe, NC Opening At the beginning of the liturgy, in the collect we prayed: "O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: " At the “head” of the new year, incorporating the “new” gifts of Christmas, I can just begin to imagine what these words are getting at. As we take stock of where we’ve been and try to imagine where we’re going, many of us can well-identify with the need for some kind of restoration. The prophet Isaiah cries out with passioned voice. And in some fashion or other we have responded to the cry with a yes ! Yes I will sing your praises, Lord. Yes I will call out for help in time of need. Yes I will give you the glory. In some way or another, at one time or another, each of us here this morning has heard a voice from beyond us, a voice that beckoned us, that invited us, that reassured us, that gave us strength when we needed it, that gave u...

December 29, 2019 The First Sunday After Christmas Day St. Paul’s, Monroe Introduction Last week I called attention to the distinctive nature of Matthew’s gospel and the birth narrative in particular. Today we have an equally distinctive and very different gospel – John’s gospel. None of the gospels came with a copyright or registration with national registry of authors. We don’t actually know the authors of any of the gospels – they are attributed as they are because of the names that later generations gave them. It has seemed a liberating thing to me because it has encouraged me to listen to each gospel on its own, with its own distinctive narrative, its own focus, its own personality if you will. The magic time of Christmas itself is past. We are in the echo time of Christmas. The emotions, whether pleasant or not so pleasant, have peaked in the last week. The church calls this the “octave” of Christmas – which is to say the week following Christmas. It ends, of course, wit...