Sermons

Pentecost 5 07/14/2019 Homily: Chapel of Christ the King Charlotte, NC Introductory: Thank you for inviting me to be with you this morning and to celebrate the Eucharist. I’ve been an Episcopalian for a pretty long time, not quite my whole life. When I was still young, my mother would tell us kids what was great about the Episcopal church. One of the things she often mentioned was that a person could go anywhere in the country and go to church on a Sunday morning at the an Episcopal Church and it would all be pretty much the same. Partly it was the Book of Common Prayer that was the same everywhere. And partly it was the clergy. They were pretty much the same. Some of the most important things I know about life came from my mother. But that insight of hers is not one of them. I have found in my 37 years of ordained ministry that clergy are not all the same. In fact, one from another, they are wildly different. The same is true of congregations. I have discovered more about that ...

Sun, Jun 2, 2019 St. John’s Winnsboro The Seventh Sunday of Easter 06/03/2019 St. John’s, Winnsboro Opening Last Thursday was the feast of the Ascension. This Sunday is the last in the season of Easter. A week of weeks. Next Sunday is Pentecost. From revealing, manifesting, appearing to hiding, fading into the background, no longer as present, but present in a new way. In preparing for this Sunday, I had occasion to revisit my previous Sundays with you here at St. John’s. I was a little surprised to find that I had been here on the 7th Sunday of Easter last year. The same lessons except in Year B instead of Year C. Last year I preached on several themes associated with Ascension. ritual passage from one season to another Turning goodbyes into Joy Thin places where the sacred is able to break into our world Living for others This year I am especially impressed with another theme. I call it “living for others.” This year, more than years past for me, I was sensitive to th...

Easter 6 Grace Church, Camden 05/27/2019 Easter tide is turning into Ascension tide this week We are echoing in the passage of our Church year a series of transitions we feel in the world around us. Memorial Day is a traditional marker separating Spring from Summer. The hotel we stayed at in Atlanta advertised that the pool was open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Unfortunately the person who checked us in apologized for it still being closed on Thursday, saying, “We can’t anticipate you know.” Mary Pat did observe to me the other day that it seems like we never had Spring – at least it really Whooshed by. Back when I was first ordained, the rector I worked for explicitly planned his ministry around the pace of the school year. Back in those days, attendance at church tended to fade in the summer when folks did “wintering” in the South or Southwest. In different parts of the country the migration happens in different directions. From South Carolina some folks “summer” in Minn...

Sun, May 19, 2019 Epiphany, Spartanburg Easter 5 05/20/2019: Epiphany Spartanburg Opening Not very often in my ministry have I paid special attention to the last book of the Bible, the Revelation to John – or using the Greek term of the title the Apocalypse of John . I have shied away from preaching on the text in part because apocalyptic is not well understood by many and by many it is misunderstood. I end up saying something about apocalyptic when Advent arrives because one of the characteristics of apocalyptic is end times and end times is a theme during the season of Advent. It is the end of the year. Christmas marks a new beginning and so on. But there are a number of other typical characteristics about apocalyptic . One of them is the use of fantastic, colorful, imaginative imagery . It’s not bland and is more like the kind of thing going on in amusement parks than in museums. The Revelation to John is, then, a little like an amusement park themed conclusion to the Bi...

Church Sat. Apr. 27: St. Mark’s Saint Mark 04/30/2019 (April 25 tr.) It’s not quite a week since the wider church concluded a 40 day preparation for proclaiming the Risen Lord. Then a week of intense telling of the story of the way to the cross, the tomb, and the empty tomb. It took a week to tell the story and this week has been focused on telling variations of the proclamation: "He is not here. He has gone ahead of you to Galilee. The Church understands that this primary proclamation is of such central importance that it takes a week to say it. And here we are, coming to the end of this week. The Gospel for tomorrow is an account of Easter – one week later. ancient homilies I am going to read to a short excerpt from an Easter sermon, written some 1700 years ago. I have never done this before. But I do it because of the power and significance of the words for us today. The Most Precious and Becoming of Gifts Be sure to deliver it, not just read it. Gregory Nazianzus deli...

Sun, May 12, 2019: St. Mark’s, Chester Easter 4 05/13/2019 Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts is read each Sunday ( again by long tradition ) instead of an Old Testament reading Woman featured prominently in the reading from Acts They had been the first witnesses to the Resurrection. Now here a woman is raised from the dead as an early sign of the power of the Holy Spirit in the followers after Jesus. Revelation: a powerful presentation of the “ worship ” going on in this book. Imagine a church: walk in and a great multitude , a throne (God) and a Lamb, all dressed in white robes, waving palm branches “fell on their faces” and worshipped . n.b. the posture is the “original” form of kneeling. [ cf. Easter as a time for standing, cf. Nicene/Constantinople anathema ] A reading available for funerals: For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hu...

3 Sun of Easter May 5, 2019 St. John’s, Winnsboro Opening In preparing to preach I considered whether I could preach on Cinco de Mayo . I asked Mary Pat what that date conjured up for her – and she put me to shame by remembering a delightful time we had in one of our early dates, enjoying beer and dinner alongside the Honolulu harbor. I thought, well, probably not. I considered also one of the major ( for me ) features of the gospel reading. It is eating eating breakfast by campfire on a lakeshore beach, just after dawn, with the smell of just caught Brown and Rainbow trout wafting up from the skillet. After 60 years I still carry that memory and can smell the smell. I still associate it with a Resurrection appearance of Jesus. For that reason I have often preached on it on the 2 nd Sunday after Easter. I decided to try preaching on something I have shied away from all these years. Paul’s conversion There are really a variety of reasons for avoiding Paul and his conversion...