Sermons

Proper 17b August 29, 2021 St. Paul's, Monroe lectionary ( For a different take on a similar subject, this oped was published in the NY Times on the same day I delivered this sermon. Opening When my mother died my brother and I pretty well knew what of her things each of us siblings expected to "inherit". There wasn't anything of particular value that I expected or wanted. A few sentimental things. Among them were several books that ended up on my bookshelves. One was the 1st ed. Jerusalem Bible I had given my mother back in ca. 1970. The other was a collection of small books of poetry that I knew to be among my step-father's favorite writings. Excerpts were read at his wedding to my mother and also at his funeral almost 40 years later. The poetry was by James Kavanaugh. It's a name that might mean something to some of you, but I mention it because he was a poet, but also an ex-priest who wrote about the church and by extension theology. Today we have ...

Proper 16b Christ Church, Lancaster August 22, 2021 Gathering lectionary In the collect today, we pray that God would provide power to the church gathered in unity of spirit. This is one of those times when I think, "What if God is listening to us?" I mean who do we think we are? And what presumption to think that we are in unity of spirit? And what would that even look like? Church gathered together This might be one of those times that's kind of a "one off" -- a turn of phrase to get the liturgy started. And yet, it is a powerful and evocative phrase when we pause to consider it. I feel distressed with my fellow clergy when they begin the liturgy with "Good Morning." I apologize if your favorite priest does that. But speaking for myself only, that everyday greeting, the thing the grocery clerk might say, takes away from the sacred nature of the gathering of the church. The church -- in Greek it is "those who are called out" -- ...

Proper 14b August 8, 2021 St. Paul's, Monroe 1 Introduction It's been an interesting week Exhausting in many ways for me. Physically. Shifted at mid-week from one chaotic house filled with boxes to another one filled with boxes. A group of 5 "college hunks" did the heavy lifting to get us here. That's right. We hired a moving company called "College Hunks Hauling Junk." What they left us to do was -- well all the details. We'll probably be working on it for months. Wednesday We moved. Well that was a really big deal for us. Big in the sense that it wore us out. Not so big in the sense that both Mary Pat and I have been easily confident that beginning our ministry here in Monroe has been in harmony with God's plan for us. Friday was an important day It was one of the major feast days of the year , the Feast of the Transfiguration. I have been drawn from a long ways back in my life the to the narrative of the mystical vision of the three d...

author: Dale Hathaway date: 'Tue, 27 Jul 2021 16:32:21 -0400' title: 'proper-13b' --- Sermons: Proper 13 Introduction: Conversion When I was around 20 years old I made an important life decision. I was prodded by the considerable range of directions that my colleagues in college were taking with their own life choices. One of my friends in particular I remember vividly. She stood up in the middle of the student center announced for all to hear that she had decided to become an existentialist. I decided at the time that I had been raised in a Christian faith and that I already understood that there was a deep spirituality in the tradition of Christianity, even though the popular versions were for me not very attractive. It was the mystical and contemplative traditions in Christianity that interested me, and I decided I would try to mine them for what I could get out of them before I moved on to other traditions and philosophies. I suspected even the...