Archive for 'Sermons'

XX Pentecost – October 10, 2010 – Year C – Proper 23 (RCL)

          The Collect of the Day—our theme-prayer for the week—gives us a lens through which we can view two of the lessons from Holy Scripture we’ve heard this morning; it’s the lens of gratitude.

(If the mention of the word “gratitude” puts you in mind of that curious phrase “grace, gratitude, and generosity” we’ve been toying with for the past few months, culminating in Bishop Cate’s evening with us ...

          “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” we hear Jesus saying to the apostles, “you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Now, why would anyone want to do something as outrageous as that—tell some tree to go jump in the lake?

What do you suppose Jesus had in mind when he suggested such a thing?

Was he being sarcastic?

It’s possible.

He may have been suggesting that, given the ...

XVII Pentecost – September 19, 2010 – Year C – Proper 20 (RCL)

          Here’s that pesky passage from the Gospel according to Luke back to tantalize us!

Can we ever hope to make sense out of it?

Before I try to go any further with it, I need to repeat the words that Jesus says at the end of the passage: “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Or, as the good old King James Version (and the good old Revised Standard Version that ...