Sermons

May 31, The Day of Pentecost – Monroe Whitsunday: white clothes of Pentecost. In the BCP the collect for this day is titled: The Day of Pentecost: Whitsunday I first heard about the source of “Whit” in “Whitsunday” when my youngest children were being born. Several different interpretations have been offered through the years. The title goes back many centuries. The first explanation I heard was that it had to do with the nasty weather in Britain in the months of March and April. Looking back many centuries before that, the custom was that Baptisms were most appropriately done on Easter. They usually included some form of taking your old clothes off and putting new clothes – after you had been dunked in water. By the middle ages baptisms were usually of infants, who might be unhappy with being dunked into the frigid water in the font. It might even be dangerous. Since the next most advantageous time for baptism was the end of the Easter season – Pentecost – baptisms in Britain we...

May 24:The Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after the Ascension – Monroe Ascension was last Thursday It was the day we scheduled to record this our community celebration of the 6th week of Easter. One day revolving and emerging as another day, each linked and urging us into the presence of God. Psalm 19 Heaven is declaring God’s glory; the sky is proclaiming his handiwork. 2 One day gushes the news to the next, and one night informs another what needs to be known. It is the Sunday between the feast of the Ascension and the feast of Pentecost. Ascension Day occuring on the 40th day of Easter. Pentecost occuring on the 50th day after Easter. In another week, on Pentecost, we will observe a Week of weeks . That’s the magic of the 50 in the name of Pentecost. The Christian festival of Pentecost is derived from the older and original Jewish feast of weeks. The week of weeks. In their case 50 days after Passover. For me, this weaving of weavings of days and weeks, numbers ...

Easter 5 – Monroe Before I say anything more, I want to acknowledge a major secular feast that is marked tomorrow. Mother’s Day . It is a day that has traditionally been observed in churches with a variety of special events. At my church in Hawai’i the equivalent of St. Paul’s “E-males” serenaded the women of the parish. For some time it has seemed to me important to acknowledge the huge range of emotions and memories that are conjured up when we say “Mother.” There is nostalgia but also anguish. There is celebration as well as sadness. Not all women become or are able to be mothers. I tried my hand at “mothering” for a while in the 1980’s. What has seemed to bind us all together is the notion that we all have or have had mothers. We pray for our mothers. We pray for Grace and favor. We pray for forgiveness. We give thanks for mothers past and present. Thank you. The times they are a changin’ I know it evokes Bob Dylan and the 1960’s. But it feels more true to me today than did e...