Sermons

When I was growing up Colorado An early lesson I remember from school was a piece of geographical trivia that if one flattened out the mountains of Colorado our state would have been larger than Texas. I was born in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. I’ve always thought of mountains as a part of my inner makeup, a part of what makes me who I am. I learned to drive when my father took me up into the mountains and let me drive the car on some of the deserted roads. Later some neighborhood friends agreed to teach me how to ski on the little hills by the little park between our houses. These hills must have been all of about 10--15 feet high, but I felt an exhilaration when I could finally stand up on my skis all the way down. Then we headed for a real ski area! I remember my first real run after practicing on the little “bunny” slope at the bottom. I felt like I was going to fall off a cliff when I got to the beginning of the run. Later, when I became a more polished and experience...

  Epiphany 7c Monroe Nearing the end of Epiphany Ash Wednesday will be here in less than two weeks. If nothing else we can recognize the passing of time. You know the saying that time goes faster the older you get. One of the young ladies at my therapy commented as February came and gone that she was having trouble keeping track of the new month. I responded saying I’m still having trouble with it being after the millennium. A piece I came across yesterday said, "I just had it brought to my attention that 1980 and 2021 are as far apart as 1980 and 1939." Time is somehow getting stranger and stranger. Something I thought was obvious turns out to be not so obvious. I don’t know where I first heard the saying, "If that’s true it’s important." What the scripture seems to say to me today is a little like what I’ve described. It seems like I understand it, but after a little thought I end up saying, "Wait? What?" What seemed like an ordinary truth turns out...

Title: Epiphany 6c  Author: St. Paul’s, Monroe  Date: February 13, 2022 --- Opening There was an absolutely stunning performance at the Olympics this last week. Actually probably more than one but one stood out for me. Nathan Chen won the gold medal in figure skating with a performance that was utterly stunning. Spinning so fast around and landing on a skate with the grace of a ballet dancer. I didn't have a sense that the athlete had been focused on his own prowess or his own skill. He seemed to be operating on the energy from something beyond himself. He had put his fate in the hands of another with whom he had an ultimate trust. Image of the “Knight of Faith” (S.K.) In the opening collect of our liturgy today we heard: O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you . The Lord is the strength of all who have faith in God not in their own gifts. Nathan Chen seems like an image that works for me to illustrate that text. I met a similar image in a book that I was ...

  Homily In the year that King Uzziah died Our text from Isaiah In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. as if in the background the music: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." unclean lips live coal that cleanses "Here am I; send me!" Call it sleep A novel with the title Call it sleep utterly captivated me in my youth 1 . The main character, David, is a young Jewish immigrant growing up in a strange land called New York City in 1907. In the most vivid writing I had encountered at that stage of my life, David’s inner searching for the meaning of his new life, his relationship with his father, the significance of his Jewish faith was seared into me as I identified with much of his odyssey. It’s perhaps not happenstance that I use the word “seared”, because the young David in the novel is focused on the uncleanness aroun...