Archive for 'Sermons'

II Epiphany – January 16, 2011 – Year A

“”Teacher, where are you staying?”

That’s what the two disciples of John the Baptist, one of whom was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother—that’s what they asked Jesus, instead of answering his question, when he turned around and discovered that they were tailing him.

“What are you looking for?” is what Jesus had asked them, and they responded with a question of their own; and when they expressed the desire to know where he was staying ...

I Epiphany – January 9. 2011 – Year A

Well, Christmas is over—even in the Episcopal Church, where we try our darnedest to observe the Twelve Days of Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany—and now what is called the Season after the Epiphany or Epiphanytide has arrived.

During the Season after Epiphany the lessons from scripture that we read each Sunday focus on the process by which God’s glory was revealed and the Word in the mind of God found its ...

I Christmas – December 26, 2010

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

Try as we might, I doubt if we could find a more eloquent summary statement of why it is that we who call ourselves Christians choose to meet together as often as we do to give thanks to God, unless it’s that other even more familiar summary statement which ...

Christmas Eve, 2010

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.”

“This will be a sign for you: You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

What is it about Christmas that makes it so special?

We know what it is about Christmas that can make it a hassle.

Rushing around to take care of those last minute details—forget the fact ...

III Advent – December 12, 2010 – Year A (RCL)

The ornaments that the church school kids walked back in with last Sunday and hung on the Jesse tree (with some additions made to some of the higher branches shortly thereafter by our own Orcenith Smith) represent significant events in the life of God’s people as they are recorded in the Hebrew scriptures—signs of God’s presence, evidence of God’s power working in the world to bring about good: the story of ...

I Advent – November 28, 2010

          Every year about this time the branches of the Church that choose to observe the seasons of the Christian year find themselves more or less at loggerheads with what most people around them are doing: acting like Christmas is already here, when it isn’t; the season of Advent begins today, and it has almost four weeks to run before it’s over.

Not that Advent isn’t a good time to get ready for Christmas—a good time ...

XXV Pentecost – November 14, 2010 – Year C – Proper 28 (RCL)

“Some things never change.”

All of us have probably heard someone make a statement like that—or maybe even said it ourselves—at one time or another.

“Some things never change.”

At least it seems that some things never change.

“Never” is, of course, a relative term which signifies, most likely, “at least not in my lifetime” and is, therefore, a highly subjective term at best.

But think for a moment about all the things ...

XXIII Pentecost – October 31, 2010 – Year C, Proper 26

This week’s Gospel lesson from Luke has to do with the universal longing to have a closer relationship with God and the surprising lengths to which folks will sometimes go to bring that closer relationship about.
The narrator introduces Zacchaeus to us as the chief tax collector of Jericho, a man who had to climb a tree so he could “see who Jesus was”.
Whether it was a tree or ...

XXII Pentecost – October 24, 2010 – Year C, Proper 25 (RCL)

This past Thursday our Diocesan Convention in Terre Haute began as usual, with registration at two o’clock in the afternoon and the hearings on the resolutions to come before convention at three.
I knew that we had a lot of resolutions to look at, twenty-one of them, in fact—resolutions that had been passed by the 2009 General Convention and brought back to our diocese and every diocese of the ...

XXI Pentecost – October 17, 2010 – Year C – Proper 24

“Pray always and don’t lose heart.”

According to the writer of Luke’s Gospel this was Jesus’ advice to his disciples: Pray always and don’t lose heart.  Keep praying and don’t lose the courage of your convictions—don’t give up hope, whatever happens.

“Keep on keeping on.”

To illustrate the wisdom of this advice Jesus told them another one of his parables, another one of his very short stories.

By the time this story gets ...