Sermons

  Easter 6 St. Alfred's Episcopal Church May 25, 2025 Opening We've been gone We've been away for a while. I know some of you noticed -- thank you. Others of you no doubt saw my facial hair and didn't recognize me. I forgive you. Of all my siblings and children, I'm the only one who doesn't readily grow facial hair. I keep trying, though, even at my age. Once when my oldest was about 3, late at night after he'd gone to bed, I shaved off the mustache and goatee I had grown. When he got up the next morning, he walked in the kitchen where I was probably drinking coffee. His face totally collapsed, and he said, "No, Daddy, put it back." I imagine Paul feeling something like my son. "Maybe I should just go back and start over." I'm thinking that as he was dealing with the dramatic twists in his life, from Pharisee to a mute thrown off his horse, healed and called to preach what he once persecuted, there had to be a time he thought eno...

Epiphany 7c St. Alfred's Episcopal Church Palm Harbor, FL Feb. 23, 2025 The Rev. Dale C. Hathaway Attention Having heard the words that we have just read from scripture, I wonder what the right reaction is? We might just reflect that all those passages sure sound familiar. “I’ve heard those before.” It would be entirely appropriate to have some questions. A few years ago, the dean of Harvard graduate school of Education began speaking and writing about questions that really matter. Wait, what? I wonder? What truly matters? How can I help? Over 100 years ago GK Chesterton wrote, the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried. For much of what we read in the Bible, as well as in the later Christian tradition, I think the best response we can make is to ask questions. Some of you have heard me tell the story about a young Jewish student living in a remote village centuries ago, shouting at the top of his lungs as he ran...

  Baptism of the Lord St. Alfred's Episcopal Church Fr. Dale Hathaway Baptism of Zack Robetaille January 12, 2025 opening We are gathered here this morning for a variety of reasons. In some places there might be children in church because their parents told them, “You will be in church.” Others are here because it’s what they do every Sunday. Some places I think there’s still a social expectation that a person will be in church. Some people, no doubt, don’t really know why they’re in church. Now some of you may be aware that after the Christmas festivities, there is often a drop off in attendance. So you all are no doubt here because you have chosen to be. For myself, there is the fact that Fr. Peter had sent me a list of who would celebrate and preach through February and March. This was one of my Sundays and I make a concerted effort to do what I said I would do. In the early centuries of the church on the day known as theophany – or more recently epiphany – in the eas...