Storied Grace

An Impractical Kingdom?

A sermon for Easter Sunday
April 5, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Acts 10:34-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

“The kingdom of God just isn’t practical.” I was in a Bible study on the Beatitudes (you remember those–blessed are the poor, the mourning, the peacemakers, the persecuted) and someone said that. I didn’t know her. The facilitator asked her what she meant. She said, “Well, like I said, the kingdom of God just isn’t practical. If we took everything Jesus said seriously, we would be taken advantage of left and right.” She continued, “If we forgave everyone, we would be run over. If we turned the other cheek, we would just have two bruised cheeks. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, we can’t be like lambs. It just isn’t practical.” My classmate was so sure. Jesus had given us an ideal, but the world isn’t like that.

Walking in Newness of Life

A sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter with Holy Baptism
April 4, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation]; Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 [The Flood]; Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea]; Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all]; Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones]; Zephaniah 3:14-20 [The gathering of God’s people]; Romans 6:3-11 ; Matthew 28:1-10

Sometimes we think the dye is cast, fate is determined, there is nothing more to be done. Sometimes we think we’re done for and there’s no way out. Sometimes we think that evil and sin have won, and we are tempted to give up on the goodness and power and love and grace of God. Sometimes we think the tomb gets the last word, and we are tempted to resign ourselves to fear and despair. Sometimes we think those things. But then the grace of God descends like lightning, and the earth shakes, and those things we feared most become like dead men, and we hear the message of the angels: Do not be afraid. Then we meet Jesus on the road and we hear his promise. And like the women at the tomb, we are overcome with great joy. For although we thought there was only a dead end, God transforms our fear into a mission and sends us out as witnesses to his love and grace. Instead of walking in our funeral clothes, we find we are walking in newness of life, as children of the living God.

Music on a Battlefield

A sermon for Good Friday
April 3, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42; Psalm 22

There may not have been a worse place than Marine Outpost Con Thien during the Vietnam conflict. Soldiers sent there, soldiers like Scott Harrison, described it as a death sentence. Scott said that it felt like “a matter of time,” a matter of time before being wounded, before being killed. Scott was 19 years old–far too young to find yourself in hell. He was there for a year. I told you about Scott and his Carousel of Happiness with hand-crafted wooden animals and whimsical music and mountain views and flowery meadows in Colorado yesterday evening. But before the Carousel and its happy visions, there was a battlefield, and death, and the smell of flesh, and a small music box. Before the Carousel in a mountain meadow there was the place of a skull, Golgotha, Calvary, outside the city walls of humankind.

Carousel Medicine

A sermon for Maundy Thursday
April 2, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35; Psalm 116:1, 10-17

In a Colorado meadow, there is a carousel. It’s called the Carousel of Happiness, and you will hear laughter and the classic carousel tune played from an old theatre organ. You will see 57 hand-carved wooden animals—tigers and swans and rabbits—painted with bright colors in a restored 1910 building, with outdoor light streaming in, surrounded by flowers and mountains. It’s an idyllic vision, and you can’t help but smile. And you just might run into the owner Scott Harrison, a Marine Corps veteran and old fashioned woodworker. But what does this have to do with Easter? What does this have to do with the table, and the cross, and the tomb? What do any of our lives, the ordinary and extraordinary, have to do with Easter? Everything. And I want to tell you about it over these three holiest of days.

In Memoriam: W. Neil Maynard

A sermon for the Funeral of Neil Maynard
March 21, 2026, at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Stuttgart, AR

Readings: II Corinthians 4:16-5:9; John 5:24-27

“If Marianne’s the matriarch, what does that make Neil?” It’s fuzzy, but I think my wife Molly asked me that question shortly after I had interviewed to be vicar here. She denies that this conversation ever happened, but she’s not preaching today and that’s how I remember it. The Bishop had appointed me here, but he wanted me to interview after my ordination. My interview was me and an intimate group of 35 or so people crowded into one room. I had come armed with all of my theoretical knowledge about how churches work–in case you’re wondering, they work kind of like families do. I figured out quickly that Marianne was the matriarch–that is, the person who makes the trains run on time. Molly asked, “Does that mean Neil’s the patriarch?” “No,” I informed her. “Churches don’t work like that. If Marianne is the matriarch, Neil just might be the crazy uncle.” After coming here, I felt bad about that assessment. I thought it was in bad faith. Then Neil gave me his book.

On the Outside

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 15, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41; Psalm 23

Jesus finds him on the outside. His blindness has kept him at the margins, ignored, taken for granted. Jesus finds him, rubs mud on his eyes, tells him to wash, a foreshadowing of baptism and being sent out into the world. Jesus finds him on the outside. The healing has caused a controversy and the man is driven out of the synagogue, out of society, out of the company of respectable insiders. Jesus finds him on the outside. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The outside is not where you want to be, but that’s where Jesus finds the man–and you.

Is There a Third Verse?

A Sermon for the Lent Lunch Series
Monday, March 9, 2026, at First United Methodist Church, Hot Springs, AR

Reading: Psalm 95

“I don’t like that second verse.” My friend Bill told me that during Morning Prayer. It was just him and me. He interrupted the service to make sure I knew that he did not like the second verse. What he meant by that was the second part of today’s psalm, verses 8-11, about hardening our hearts. Maybe we didn’t like it either. It ends with that foreboding message: “Therefore I swore in my anger that they should not enter my rest.” Bill said, “I don’t like that second verse. Is there a third verse?”

When We Cannot See the Way

A sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent
March 1, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17; Psalm 121

My friend called me one day and said, “I just don’t know how this ends.” He was, you might say, in distress. The challenges of family life were becoming overwhelming. The d-word had been spoken: divorce. He was straining to see into the darkness, around the corner. He told me, “Sometimes I think I see light at the end of the tunnel, but then I realize it’s the light of an oncoming train.” He talked. I mostly listened and asked questions. We prayed. At the end of our time together, I offered him some advice I had once received: In times like this, when we don’t know how things will end and we feel out of control, faithfulness looks like putting one foot in front of the other and just trusting in Jesus come what may. Sometimes that is all we can do.

Save Us from the Time of Trial

A sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
February 22, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs

Readings: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11; Psalm 32

Every year on the first Sunday in Lent, our gospel passage is the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Immediately following his baptism, Matthew tells us that the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But the ole tempter takes his time. Jesus has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and he is famished. There is some truth to those old Snickers commercials: you’re not you when you’re hungry. Jesus is at his weakest, most vulnerable, and that is when the devil shows up.

What Are You Looking For?

A sermon for the second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 18, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42; Psalm 40:1-12

“What do you seek?” Erika stood at the front of the chapel with a group of fellow university students around her on the first Sunday of the spring semester. The priest had asked the question: “what do you seek?” The students were part of a Catechumenate class, a time of preparation for Confirmation offered by the Episcopal campus ministry. Erika, like many in that group in front of the priest, had not grown up Episcopalian. She had shown up in college, and she felt drawn to Confirmation, to a mature, public affirmation of faith. Classes would begin later on in the week, but on that day, a Sunday morning, she and her fellow seekers stood before the priest to officially begin the process. He asked, “what do you seek?” Luckily for them, the answer was provided in the bulletin. Liturgical churches are helpful in that way. The group answered as one: “Life in Christ.” It’s a good answer. To Erika, it felt honest, but she needed to put some meat on it, to understand it for herself. She was looking for Christ–or at least a new way of knowing him.