Sermons

April 26:The Third Sunday of Easter Monroe (Sat 4/25) Easter continued We are still in Easter. In fact the Gospel reading is placed on Easter evening. So if you think time is moving in a strange fashion during this time of Corona Virus – you’re absolutely correct. This episode in the Gospel of Luke – 2 of Jesus’ disciples on the road out of Jerusalem. Outside the city. Not yet to their destination. It is so well-known as to be almost a clichè. For that reason it is a passage that is for me scary to try to preach on. It is the pattern of readings during Easter that we listen to a series of excerpts from the Acts of the Apostles. As if to say, “Having experienced the Resurrection – now, what are you going to do about it?” Peter stands up boldly and preaches for all he’s worth. We heard the first part of this sermon last week. He continues. Imagine, if you will, the strongest, boldest, preacher you’ve ever heard or seen. That’s Peter. Next week’s reading tells us the effect of hi...

April 12:Easter Day – Monroe Thin space – The time between times It all comes down to an image for me. I saw it literally and frequently in Hawai’i. Sitting on a shore, looking out at the ocean, wistfully, peacefully, longing. A priest I knew once saw me doing that on the island of Moloka’i. He told me that when he saw me looking that way, across the lapping waves out to sea, it explained to him in a flash what it meant to live in Hawai’i. What I was looking at was the intersection of the ocean and the land. At a certain point in that intersection it’s a little bit of ocean and a little bit of shore – but neither at the same time. A poet and a philosopher by the name of John O’Donohue gave me that image as a metaphor for what the Irish Celtic spiritual tradition has called thin places. Thin places are where the distance between God and human is not very great. It is a place where the mundane is made sacred. It is a place where the grandeur and majesty of the divinity is made hum...

April 5, 2020: The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday – Monroe This Day Today is a strange day. Today the church wraps together Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. What used to be the two Sundays preceding Easter is now just one. And it is the first time the Eucharist has been celebrated in this place since March 8 – almost a month. Palm Sunday for me has wonderful and joyous memories. My favorite part was the custom I developed at St. Mary’s in Honolulu. We would bless palms in the gathering room and then march in procession out the doors, through the parking lot, cross one of the major thoroughfares coming out of downtown, and sing as we passed McDonald’s. There was a dear little Japanese lady, Jane Oki was her name, it was her favorite too. One year we had a leading musician from the Hawaiian Waikiki scene playing his accordion as we sang and marched. As Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, with people singing and waving palms, the city was an intense place. There many factions...

Second Sunday in Lent - March 8, 2020 Monroe Nicodemus: Stretches to do something new: 1 Graphic Some time recently I came across a picture of a sign on a building. In big letters it said: “Be brave enough to suck at something new.” It reminded me of a book I read many years ago titled A Pretty Good Person: What It Takes to Live With Courage, Gratitude and Integrity by Lewis Smedes. The message of that book was similar to a message I had come across even earlier where the argument was made that life was a lot like baseball. The author of that book pointed out that, like life, baseball is the only sport that keeps track of – actually makes a big deal of – errors. Abraham’s saga begins. There are so many times in the Bible where the drama is so understated – as in "“So Abram went.” Events that just smack you up side the head are expressed in just a couple of words. Like the similar passage in the John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” All of Jesus compassion – it fills the NT – redu...

March 1:The First Sunday in Lent – St. John’s Opening It is good to be back here at St. John’s. It’s been a while. Why we’ve had Christmas and a New Year’s Eve. A new decade. And Ash Wednesday has now come and gone. Lent has begun. It’s a time of the year that I dreaded when I was a parish priest . There were more activities, more things to keep track of, more pressure to grow, and more hope that our numbers would be better this year than they were the last year. I must tell you that it’s been a delightful deliverance for me to be retired. It’s delightful to be here with you this morning. The keeping of Lent has been a great blessing to me from the time I was a youth. It’s been a time when I could hear the call to be better than I was. And for most of my life it has been a time when the voices of distraction have been tamed. I have been more aware that most of my life and energy is spent on things that are ultimately not very important. Lent has been a time that flashes, “Major on...

February 23: The Last Sunday After the Epiphany – Monroe Opening We come to the last Sunday in Epiphany. It’s a season in the church year that begins with, of course the feast of epiphany, which is the 12th day after Christmas. So a season in the church year that lasts for a variable number of weeks is devoted to the manifestation of Christ. For that’s what the word epiphany means, manifestation. To reveal. To unveil. To see what couldn’t be seen before. We are so confident that we’ve seen it all. It’s tough to surprise us. We’ve been to church over and over again, perhaps all our lives. Is it possible for this season of epiphany to surprise us? To catch us looking in one direction while the prince approaches us from our blindspot? The trip up the mountain for what we call the transfiguration was such a place for John and James and Peter. Glory was manifest to them and they had not expected it. This then is the text that the church gives us to hear as we turn our attention from...

February 16:The Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany – Monroe Setting The lessons this week are not easy and comfortable words. The preacher might well be justified in looking at one of the other lessons. Afterall we’re given the choice of preaching on: 1) murder, 2) forgiving your enemy, 3) adultery, 4) cutting off one of your hands to prevent sin, 5) divorce, 6) swearing in court – known as perjury in our legal system. Let me read from another version – loose translation by Eugene Peterson. I use it sometimes because several bishops through the years have confessed to me that they use it when they celebrate Eucharist. Matthew 5:21-37 The Message (MSG) Reconcile Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill. 23-24 “This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about...