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Shepherd in the Dark

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 11, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The after school and summer program I attended as a child had bribed us. If we learned the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23, we could pick a prize. I learned them quickly. I remember sitting down with both prayers, and I had them by the end of the night. And the prayers came in handy sooner than I thought they would. It was early in the morning, still dark outside. I was in the backseat of the car and Mom was driving to the hospital. I would have surgery that morning and I was scared. When you’re seven they put you at the top of the schedule for the day; we had to be there by 5. I prayed two things. Prayer 1: Jesus, if you’re coming back, before my surgery would be a good time. Prayer 2: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Showing up with Wounds

A sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter
April 27, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: John 20:19-31

Today is called “Low Sunday.” It’s called that because our numbers tend to be low after our big Easter Sunday. Those who show up today are dragged here by something greater than themselves, by the very Spirit of God pulling them, by grace, to the life on offer in the Word of God and the sacraments of the Church. But for many, the pattern is Easter Sunday, then we need a break.

The Resurrection of the Body

A sermon for Easter Sunday
April 20, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26, John 20:1-18

“We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” Like centuries of Christians before us, we confess those words week after week. We will say them in just a moment. We will say that we believe in resurrection–a physical and bodily resurrection. We don’t just believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe that we will be physically resurrected on the Last Day, too. That’s what we confess week after week.

Can These Bones Live?

A sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter
April 19, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Luke 24:1-12

“Mortal, can these bones live?” We heard that reading from Ezekiel a few moments ago. The Spirit of God whisks the prophet away to a desert graveyard, the scene of an old, forgotten battle, a place of death. Bones–dry bones–are all around. Life is nowhere to be found. And God asks: “Mortal, can these bones live?” I felt like I heard that question as I was leaving a nursing home room–Mary’s room–at the end of a dark hallway. Our hour pastoral visit had come to a close; Communion had been shared; she had bared her soul to me. As I walked away from that tomb of a room and to my car, I heard the old question: “Mortal, can these bones live?” The only answer I had was the same as Ezekiel’s: “O Lord GOD, you know.”

The Cross in a Dark Room

A sermon for Good Friday
April 18, 2025, 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

Mary’s room was dark, like a tomb, there at the end of the nursing home hallway. At 97, it had been her home for 20 years. She had called for Communion and a pastoral visit because she was Episcopalian when she was a child and she always liked Episcopal priests. Mary’s room wasn’t only dark because she kept the lights off and curtains drawn, closed off to the world. It was also dark because she was lonely, desperately lonely; she was depressed, terribly depressed. At the end of her life, she was looking back and didn’t know what it was for. She carried regret. She carried hatred and anger. She carried shame.

He Remembers Us

A sermon for Maundy Thursday
April 17, 2025 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

I visited Mary in her home. It was a room in a nursing care facility; far from the best one in town. Just a single room. She kept the place dark. It was like going into a tomb. Mary was 97 years old and had lived in that dark room for going on 20 years. She had no family, no friends, she said. She had called because she was Episcopalian once, when she was a child. She had been baptized in an Episcopal church, and her aunt took her to Sunday school sometimes. Not often, it didn’t sound like. She didn’t like the nursing home chaplain who had come by, so she called me. She called and asked me to step into her darkness, into this living tomb at the end of the hall. I stayed for an hour or so, and she told me her story. I will share her story with you over the next three days.

Jesus, Remember Us

A sermon for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
April 13, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs AR

Readings: Luke 22:14-23:56

He must be the patron saint of deathbed conversions, of last minute pleas when your back is up against the wall, of foxhole prayers and “Hail, Mary” long shots. He must be, this thief on the cross beside Jesus. At the last minute, just before the end, he makes a request. It sounds like a humble request. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The way Luke tells it today, the conversation is serene, almost peaceful at the end, akin to a last request before the hood goes on the head. I think it must have been less so, more of a conversation of groans, sighs, and screams than well strung together words. The thief screams out, pain coursing through his body, regret coursing through his mind, anxiety coursing through his soul: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

In Memoriam: Gary Morrison

A sermon for the funeral of Gary Morrison
April 5, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 11:21-27

There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.

Today we gather to give thanks to God for our friend Gary. We gather in this church he loved so much to remember him, his quiet and kind faith, his perseverance in the face of adversity. We gather to support his family and friends and those who mourn. But most of all, we gather because St. Paul tells us that nothing in this world or in the world to come will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because Gary was baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he belongs to Christ forever. Nothing can take that away.

Sorry Not Sorry

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 30, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: II Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

“But he’s not sorry!” I was a counselor at Choir Camp, and I was in charge of the boys in 2nd-4th grade. Sometimes they fight. (Before I forget: Send your kids and grandkids to choir camp this summer. It’s a ministry sponsored by St. Luke’s and led by our own organist Charlie Rigsby.) Anyway, sometimes the boys fight, and I told the offending boy to apologize or he couldn’t go to the pool. I don’t remember any details. But I remember the other boys in the group spoke up. They weren’t involved in the dispute at all, but they spoke up to make sure I knew that the offender wasn’t actually sorry. He had even said it under his breath, they said. After the offender had apologized on command, under his breath, he had said, “sorry, not sorry.” So the other boys, indignant, offended at the injustice, had spoken up: “But he’s not sorry!” they had said. “He’s not sorry, so he shouldn’t get to go to the pool! It’s not right!” If you’ve worked with children, you’ve encountered this exact situation. If you work with adults, you have encountered it there, too. The offending boy had said, “sorry, not sorry,” and now Counselor Mark had to figure out what to do because the boys had all agreed, in council no less, that the apology did not count unless the offender meant what he said, and he shouldn’t get to go to the pool.

I Am the Bread of Life

A sermon for the Hot Springs Lent Lunch Series
March 17, 2025, at First United Methodist Church, Hot Springs, AR

Reading: John 6:22-35

“Can I get some bread over here?!” The little boy was with his mother at Olive Garden. “Can I get some bread?” The boy could not have been older than 7 or 8–old enough to know better, if you had asked me. He had already eaten, and his mother was waiting for the check. She kept telling him to be quiet because he had already eaten; he kept on. “Can I get some bread?” What came next really put me over; he started asking other customers if he could have a piece of their bread. “Can I have a piece of your bread?” The boy finally asked me. I was sitting there with a priest friend. We were enjoying our bread and had every intention of eating every bit of it ourselves. But we were in our priest collars, and it was Lent, and other people were looking, and wasn’t it the right thing to be charitable? My friend divided his breadstick in half and gave it to the boy. “Here, kid,” he said. “Now go sit down and give your mother a break.”