Sermons

Spiritual autobiography of priesthood November 2022 From the time I first began to imagine myself as an ordained priest, sometime in my early 20’s, the worker priests in France were models of what I thought my ministry could be. A ministry aimed at the poor and the outcast, those who could least afford it, seemed most attractive to me. I was inspired by the stories I read about the emerging ministry with those who are dying, hospice as it emerged first in England. Such were the dreams of ministry I thought and talked about. My earliest memory of the Episcopal Church was of my uncle’s music ministry in Quincy, Illinois. He was the organist for the Cathedral there. I was proud that I had family connections with this grand church, “grand” at least to my 10 year old eyes. But along with that is the earliest memory I have of Episcopal preaching. The priest spent the whole sermon explaining why the church flag in front of the narthex stood one step higher than the American flag. I thought...

title: The Third Sunday of Easter  author: " St. Paul's, Monroe "  date: " May 1, 2022 " Opening ^1a "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." ( Ps. 118:24 ) So begins the well-known children's hymn. Today is the day the Lord has given to us. There will never be another like it. Count your blessings. Make every moment count. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. Conversion During the season of Easter we hear from a series of readings from The Acts of the Apostles. Popularly this is known as the narrative of the birth of the church. It relates foundational episodes in the early years of the Jesus movement, known in its earliest manifestation as The Way . Today's reading introduces one of the most important episodes from that, the conversion of Saint Paul . The writer of The Acts of the Apostles -- the same author that gave us the Gospel of Luke -- ...

title: Easter 2c  author: St. Paul's, Monroe  date: April 24, 2022 April 24: The Second Sunday of Easter Lectionary Revelation For a long time I wanted to stay as far away from the last book of the Bible as I could get. Typically Christians that I didn't want to be associated with thought very highly of the last book in the Bible -- "The Revelation to John" -- and used it in ways that seemed inappropriate to me. Even before I had a very good understanding of what the book was all about I had the sense that using it as if it was a book of predictions, like Nostradamus, was an example of inappropriate use. At the same time I really didn't know what to make of it. Eventually I decided that what I needed to do was find out a little bit about the book, to read it to begin with, and then begin to explore the variety of ways that the book has been interpreted. One of the things to be learned about the book is that it is a prime example of a kind of writing called...

title: Janice Pyron Morris Funeral  author: St. Paul's, Monroe  date: April 19, 2022 Note: The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too, shall be raised. The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn. Opening The second to last chapter of the Bible begins an awesome vision that cu...

title: Christian Burial for Frank Gaertner  author: St. Paul's, Monroe  date: April 18, 2022 Opening It’s the day after Easter and drizzly out. We find ourselves gathered into a church, probably not the first thing we thought we'd be doing the day after Easter. Death personified I’m just one person and my experiences are limited by the fact that — well, it’s just me. But my experience of death is that it comes to us unbidden. Unwelcome. So often a surprise . Sometimes when a person has been in great pain and suffering, death is in fact longed for, but with some kind of rascally contrariness it takes its own sweet time. Death takes us by surprise. But, again, my own experience has been that, at such times, God’s presence is more palpable than at any other time. The bold, large, emotions are quite familiar to us then: laughter, tears, stories to tell, poignant memories silently remembered, faces of loved ones not seen in years. The boundary between God’s realm and our ...

title: Easter Homily 2022   date: April 2022  author: St. Paul's, Monroe Opening ^1 Wearing new clothes There is a tradition that Easter is the day to show up at church in new clothes. That tradition goes back to the association of Easter with baptism, with the incorporation of new Christians into the body of Christ. Baptism as it was practiced for many centuries entailed being stripped of your old clothes before entering the baptismal font and as you emerged being clothed in new white robes. New clothes for the new life given in the Risen Lord. This morning I am particularly attracted to the women at the tomb, to their tenderness, sensitivity, intensity, awe, wonder, and not a little bit their trepidation. I am drawn to Mary who heard the Lord call her by name. And with that was ready to run to pass on the news that she had seen the Lord. I am in awe of the power of one person’s testimony, be it a story or just the look in their eye, that the world has just chan...

Easter Vigil Homily   date: April 16, 2022 author: St. Paul's, Monroe Passover 2022 I was listening to a story the other day featuring a priest and a rabbi doing Ministry in Ukraine. The occasion is on the one hand the war in Ukraine and on the other the occasion of Passover and Easter. One of the things that was asked of the two was what their message would be to their congregation this Easter / Passover. The priest talked about how Jesus was concerned with Justice, particularly in the context of such an unjust War as we have in Ukraine. He referred to Jesus overturning the tables in the temple. Jesus clearly had parties that he argued with – I hesitate saying enemies, because as the priest said, Jesus never pursued a vendetta. He was always ready to forgive. For him, Jesus's heart would be on those who are being unjustly murdered and savaged in Ukraine. The rabbi remembered a line from the Passover liturgy that directs that everyone should consider that they were redeemed...

Good Friday, 2022 St. Paul’s, Monroe April 15, 2022 Opening Image of God Many years ago I came across a book that was eye-opening for me at the time. It remains so to this day. It challenged me by claiming that the way we live our lives is at least in part a function of what our image of God is like. The title of the book is Good Goats; healing our image of God . ^1 It was a simple appearing book and not very long. It had big illustrations, almost as if it was a children's book. In part it was a treatise on the theological theme of atonement or some might say redemption . The other part was an attempt to reach ordinary Christians like you and me and to challenge us to self-examination about our working image of God. Is our image a great uncle in the sky? Is it a demanding teacher? Is it an unforgiving judge? What is our working image of God? From the beginning Christians have experienced and believed that the greatest work of God is in the cross, the death and passion...

date: "April 14, 2022" "Maundy" 1 You may remember that on Ash Wednesday as Lent began, I called attention to the fact that the practice of the church was to do the opposite of what Jesus seemed to be saying. The gospel of that day relates Jesus saying that we are not disfigure our faces when we are praying so as not to brag about our spirituality. That's the day when many of us have found it empowering to be out of our comfort zone by showing to the world the ashes on our foreheads. Today is one of those days when the liturgy urges us to get out of our comfort zone. We had a hint of that last week when we began the liturgy outside, and processed into the church. That's not the way we usually do things. As this night is traditionally practiced with a footwashing there is a real sense of intimacy and vulnerability, even nakedness that happens when we let relative strangers touch our bare feet. Getting outside of our comfort zone. The disciples were pushe...

Palm Sunday, 2022 St. Paul's, Monroe April 10, 2022 You know how the shtick works. We've been doing it for a few years now. We do it on the phone. We do it in the pharmacy. At the doctor's office. Whatever it is we're about to start, it all begins with someone asking us two things. The first is, “What is your name?” The second is, “What is your birthday?” I was asked that the other day by the lab technician who was about to take my blood. I was trying to be lighthearted and I tried to make light of something utterly distinctive of me – like my name and birth date. I said after I gave my name and birth date that I was born in Arizona and the town I was born in doesn't exist anymore. She couldn't imagine such a thing. She asked me to repeat it in case she misheard it. Finally, she said, “Well I learn something everyday.” I thought of this example, about the notion of distinctive narratives associated with a person. If there is one thing that is distinctive about...

  title: The Fifth Sunday in Lent  date: April 3, 2022  author: St. Pauls, Monroe Sunday before Passion Sunday. Some weeks ago I issued an invitation to a journey. It was a journey that each of us was going to make on our own. But it was also a journey that we would make together as a community of faith. You remember the lines from the Mission Impossible : "Your mission, [ name ], should you choose to accept it, ... As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds." Some of us heard the call and have said yes. The mission that we were offered was a call to a Holy Lent. It was to pursue a renewed holy life dedicated to Christ. The season of Lent has a long history tied to the preparation of those about to be baptized at Easter. To be incorporated into the community of the local Jesus Movement. 1500 years ago Benedict of Nursia compiled a similar p...

  March 20: The Third Sunday in Lent Prince of Egypt opening At my church in Honolulu I had access to screens that I could project images and even videos on as a part of my sermon. I often took advantage of that ability. It was as if I had a toolkit to draw from as I was preaching. Sometimes that worked to my advantage and sometimes it didn't. I wish I had that option today. You see we have a lesson as a part of our scripture readings that becomes more vivid and I think communicates more fully through a video. a cartoon actually. Some of you may have seen the Disney movie back in the '90's the Prince of Egypt . It was produced with traditional animation techniques. It was old school animation for an old story. The scene in the movie where Moses encounters the burning bush, and meets God. It is a scene that I have viewed many, many times, and every time I find it powerful. The reason I find the scene particularly striking is that I can't imagine a more effective v...

  title: Lent 1 Homily  author: 'St. Paul''s Monroe' date: 'March 6, 2022' Opening Yesterday was an extraordinary time. It was my first visit to Winston-Salem. It was my first time gathering in person with the whole diocese of North Carolina. When I returned to my hotel room on Friday night the neighbor in the room next to me ask me how long I had been a man of the cloth. I had to do a quick think and I realized it's almost 40 years that I have been ordained. The program on Friday was a conversation with two remarkable sisters. They are members of St Michael and all angels in Charlotte. And they talked about how in the last 10 years or so their Christian faith has taking a new and deeper turn in their lives. They are examples of ordinary Christians who by taking their faith seriously make an extraordinary impact on the world around them. I made connections with people in the diocese and it felt natural and empowering. In the months and years ahead I h...