Sermons

Sun, Feb 24, 2019 St. Paul’s Ft. Mill Homily Sun, Feb 24, 2019 St. Paul’s, Ft. Mill The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany Color: Green Assigned Readings Lesson 1: Genesis 45:3–11,15 Psalm: 37:1–12,41–42 Lesson 2: 1 Corinthians 15:35–38,42–50 Gospel: Luke 6:27–38 I’m not really sure when it first struck me as odd. It might have been sitting in the pew, just 16 year old, with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, thinking to myself as I heard the gospel read. Jesus said, "I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” And I thought to myself, “I won...

Epiphany 4 02/04/2019 Homily: St. John’s, Winnsboro Opening When my brother was in college in Santa Fe, he had a teacher who was introducing the class to music. He gave them a cassette tape of a piece of music that he had bought in Germany. He said it was unavailable in this country at the time. The teacher described the tape as the most beautiful piece of music ever written . When my brother played it I agreed with him. I even tried a few years later to get a copy of the music in order to learn to play it on the piano. Then I began to discover and later I heard over and over again the piece of music that at one time was unavailable in this country was the famous and sometimes infamous Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. Now of course that piece of music can be found virtually anywhere and heard from department stores to church to commercials. It is beautiful, but it is so familiar, so often heard, that it is exceedingly difficult to hear it as if with new ears. I still like the music...

Homily: Marriage of Pierson Payne & Grace Neill 29 December 2018 I began thinking about this homily many months ago. I have to tell you it’s a lot earlier than I usually do for normal Sunday sermons. My intention was to present Grace & Pierson with a charge that they might take with them as the begin their married life together. I wanted it to be right. I wanted it to be lovely and powerful. For I really like these two people. When I was in graduate school at Notre Dame, Bernard Cooke was regarded by some as an important theologian. He died in 2013 having made a huge contribution to the way in which we talk about God and God’s relationship to the Church, about the sacraments and how a sacramental view of the world is at the heart of what it means to be Church. When I first encountered him it was in the context of his understanding that all human life is essentially sacramental – i.e. human beings by nature reveal and make manifest God’s prese...

Homily – The First Sunday of Advent December 2, 2018 St. John’s, Winnsboro Opening I’ve prepared enough Advent sermons to remember a time that one of the main challenges was to get people to think in terms of apocalyptic , end of times , the day of judgment , and so on. When I first began preaching many people, myself included, would primarily associate such thinking with the crackpot who stood on the soapbox stand in the middle of Times Square and called out to everyone and no one in particular, “The end is coming. The end is coming.” Jesus message: “your redemption is drawing near” when you see these things. Jesus addresses his followers and says look around you. What do you see. Do you see terrible things happening? Terrible things on the horizon? Does it seem like the present course of things can’t be sustained? Well, he says, you’re right. Redemption is near at hand. Look around and see the “signs of the times”. That is look at the fig tree … pay attention … pray for stre...

Homily November 18: St. Mark’s, Chester 11 am Proper 28 The end times We have entered into a peculiar time in the church year, at least it always strikes me that way, when we are approaching the last of a year-long sequence but the world around us is in some other place. It is in a mode of buying and selling. It is in a partying mode. Next Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year. It often happens that the readings we are hearing today occur just before Thanksgiving day as it does this year. Sometimes Thanksgiving is later and we would hear lessons for the last Sunday of the church year. Those lessons all have a theme having to do with the end-times, apocalyptic occurances, the big picture. The Thanksgiving readings, of course, reflect the tone of the day and are completely about thanksgiving for all the gifts that God has given us. It’s a day about gratitude. Often this Sunday appropriates such a tone. By design the gospels of the Sundays leading up to the last Sunday of ...

Proper 27 November 11: Ordinary Time, Proper 27 Epiphany, Spartanburg Since I last saw you, we have certainly traveled a long ways as a people. One thing I know of that has been huge in our family is that we have passed from the place where Mary Pat was anxious about my being away from the house long enough to come to Spartanburg and be with you – that was June – up until the present day when she is able to be with me as I come to celebrate with you. Oh, the wonders of what God is doing in our midst. As a nation we have traveled to the end of the midterms. I said in our morning prayer on Wednesday that I was grateful to have the whole campaigning experience be over even though I knew that the next campaign was beginning already that morning. When I was in my 20’s, the experience of having one generation in conflict with another seemed inconvenient but bearable . On the downward slide to the age of 70 I am weary of the pervasive rhetoric that pushes us apart, that encourages our...

Homily: November 4:Ordinary Time, Proper 26 st mark 11 am Introductions Thank you for the invitation to celebrate Eucharist with you, to give thanks for the work that God has done, is doing, and will do in your midst. Briefly, about myself. Hawai’i parishes in WI, IN, HI, and supply in NC & USC. Taught college in Indiana, Hawai’i, and SC. Currently an adjunct in Religion department at Winthrop. It’s because my wife, Mary Pat, got hired by the Math department to teach teachers how to teach Math that brings us to SC. This is my first time in Chester, SC. I have a smattering of input from people who have knowledge of your community. For one person it has been the center for them over many years of one of his chief passions: skydiving. The bishop has shared with me his perception that the people of this particular community are seriously engaged in doing “God’s work” in this place, making Christ known by serving God’s people. We drove around Chester on our way to obse...