bible – Storied Grace

What did we expect?

A sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 17
August 30, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Readings: Jeremiah 15:15-21 ; Psalm 26:1-8 ; Romans 12:9-21 ; Matthew 16:21-28

There have been times I did not know fully what I was getting into. I must have been around 7 years old. I was a cub scout, and I was going on my first, ever, camping trip. Most of the other kids had been with their dads before. Not me. But I was excited. Cub scouts were supposed to be excited about that sort of thing, after all. “There’s nothing to be worried about,” I was told. “It’s nothing but fun,” I was told. We arrived at a camp that had old fashioned tents with cots. Us boys went off into the woods. We picked blackberries galore and took them back to our tents, I suppose for late night snacks. That’s when the bugs came–ants and spiders everywhere. There were coyotes yipping in the distance–I had never heard one of those. Earlier that day, while we waited to leave for camp, the other campers and I had watched the movie “Twister,” the 1996 movie about storm chasers and tornadoes. As I laid on my cot that night, surrounded by bugs and spiders, coyotes yipping in the distance, I heard thunder. And that was the last straw. I ran to the fire where the camp leaders were still up. Through tears, I told my troop leader I wanted to go home. I was done with the bugs and coyotes and thunder. I remember him asking me, “We’re camping outside! What did you expect?”

A New Favorite

A sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 15
August 16, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 56:1,6-8 ; Psalm 67 ; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

If you had to pick a favorite person in the Bible, who would it be? The best answer is probably Jesus, but short of that, perhaps you would say Abraham. He’s a favorite of St. Paul, of St. James, and the writer of the letter to the Hebrews because of his faith, reckoned to him as righteousness. Or maybe David: A plucky upstart who dared to answer God’s call, a sinner who knew redemption, a king who knew the pasture. Maybe it’s Esther. She was featured in our Vacation Bible School this year. Called for a time such as this, she used the brains God gave her to outsmart evil. A favorite of mine is Mary Magdalene, in our Resurrection window. She goes to the tomb early in the morning; she remembers the things others conveniently forget out of fear; she knows Jesus’s voice. That’s who I want to be like. But what about the unnamed Canaanite woman today? Would she be on your favorites list? Probably not–but she should be. Now I’ll be honest: this passage has always been a challenge for me. Maybe it has for you, too. Let’s dive in and take a closer look.

Hold to His Hand

A sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 14
August 9, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9-18 ; Psalm 85:8-13 ; Romans 10:5-15 ; Matthew 14:22-33

We had rented a pontoon boat on Lake DeGray, a group of friends with Molly and me. It was a beautiful day. About midway through the afternoon, we had anchored in a little cove and were swimming. And then we heard it. Thunder, just lightly rolling, in the distance. At that moment I remembered something the young man at the marina had said: If you’re on the water and you hear thunder, you’re too late. Sure enough, in no time at all, the storm rolled in. DeGray doesn’t have any slips where we might take shelter, so we just hunkered down in a semi-protected cove for a while. When it looked as if everything had calmed down, we headed back. But sure enough, it started up again, stronger than before. And this time we were unprotected in the middle of the lake. It’s a little like today’s gospel. The disciples are on the Sea of Galilee, with useless sails and oars, in the pitch black, water swamping the wooden boat, battered by the wind, exhausted by struggle, scared to death. The disciples are in a dangerous position. But then Jesus, knowing they are in trouble and fearful, goes across the sea to them, walking on the troubled water. They think he’s a ghost, but he calls out to them. “Take heart, It is I; do not be afraid.”

More than We Can Ask or Imagine

A sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 13
August 7, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 55:1-5 ; Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22 ; Romans 9:1-5 ; Matthew 14:13-21

“And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.” That’s how St. Matthew puts it, and we call the story the Feeding of the 5,000. But there were a lot more than 5,000. If there was one woman and one child per man, we’re talking about the Feeding of the 15,000. Or a couple children and one woman per man, the Feeding of the 20,000. In short, there were a lot of people, and old Matthew seems to sell Jesus short with his 5,000 count. The gospels were just using the prevailing custom of the time of only counting male heads of households. But I prefer to imagine that the old tax collector’s mind was so blown at the miraculous nature of it all that he lost his wits–his intellectual senses were dulled, so great was his wonder. All this is more than he can ask or imagine, he can scarcely describe it. Have you ever been that amazed?

God is Good All the Time

A sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 11
July 19, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 44:6-8 ; Psalm 86:11-17; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

I stood at the edge of my backyard garden in Stuttgart. It was a good sized garden. I had tilled it up by hand, carefully planted everything, watered, babied it. Stuttgart had that good, fertile soil, the kind where if you planted erasers you could grow pencils. The plants had come up nicely–flowers, tomatoes, okra, peppers, squash. I had tried to prepare for weeds, but not well enough. It was about this time of year. It was hot. We had just had one of those weeks with heavy rain–and maybe it had been a little while since I’d had time to get out there. The result: the weeds were taller than all my plants. I was too tired and it was too hot to mess with it. I dropped all my garden tools and got out the weedeater. That evening, as I bought my vegetables at Walmart, I told myself, “God is good, all the time; all the time, God is good.”

The Sower Comes Back Around

A sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 10
July 12, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-13 ; Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14 ; Romans 8:1-11 ; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

“Listen! A sower went out to sow.” Jesus tells a great crowd a story they could have related to. Historians have noted that at the time of Jesus, upwards of 90% of the Judean population was engaged in agriculture. It was not a successful enterprise. The people listening to Jesus would have known what it was like to scatter seed, care for the seed, baby the sprout, pray over the sapling, work day in and day out in the hot sun, and lose everything in the end. Times were hard; malnutrition was rampant. It was hard to be a farmer, and they would have always been on their guard. But Jesus today tells a story about a different kind of farmer, one who sows seed indiscriminately, who throws the seed on the path, on the rocks, in the thorns, and in the good soil. He sows abundantly, and things take their natural course. Birds come. The sun scorches. Thorns crowd. But sometimes a miracle happens. Sometimes the unexpected comes. And the good soil yields, not a meager crop, but more than they could ask or imagine.

Grace Makes Room

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 8
June 28, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Jeremiah 28:5-9 ; Psalm 89:1-4,15-18 ; Romans 6:12-23 ; Matthew 10:40-42

I got myself into trouble during Sunday school. The pastor’s wife had come to teach the youth group. I do not really remember what we were talking about, but I do remember that, at some point in the conversation, I got frustrated. I was frustrated because everyone seemed to be blaming the devil for everything. They were saying, “It’s hard to follow Jesus because the devil is always on my back.” And they were saying, “I try really hard, but then the devil comes along and makes me do what I don’t want to do.” I have to confess: I’ve never liked the time-tested the-devil-made-me-do-it excuse. And I said so. “I think we give the devil too much credit,” I said. “I’m not sure he’s ever tempted me one way or another. I can get myself in trouble all by myself, and I don’t need his help.” As I remember it, the pastor’s wife and the rest of the class didn’t really know what to say about that, other than to assure me that it was, in fact, all the devil’s fault. Sunday school ended early that day.

Follow Me

A sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 5
June 7, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Hosea 5:15-6:6 ; Psalm 50:7-15 ; Romans 4:13-25 ; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” Today’s gospel takes us to the calling of St. Matthew. Jesus sees an unlikely disciple in an unlikely place. Matthew, a tax collector, sitting in a tax booth, would not have expected a call from Jesus. Despised, called a collaborator with the Romans, Matthew was not the most obvious candidate for discipleship. But Jesus calls him anyway.

One Prayer at a Time

A sermon for the 40th anniversary of the Ordination of the Rev. Charles Chapman
Commemoration of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer
Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at St. James’ Episcopal Church, Magnolia, AR

Readings: I Kings 8:54-61; Psalm 103:8-12; Acts 2:38-42; Luke 18:16-18

I was tickled the other day, driving from Missouri back to Hot Springs along highway 65. My wife, Molly, is the navigator and the DJ, but she had fallen asleep. Not wanting to wake her, and not wanting to mess with Spotify while driving along the windy highway, I was stuck listening to the playlist she had selected on the way out of Branson. It was what I would call old country: Glen Campbell, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton. And of course, Johnny Cash. You should know that I’m not a big fan of country, but sometimes you put up with it because that’s what your partner wants to listen to. Some might call that love. Anyway, I came across this Johnny Cash song: “One Piece at a Time.” Maybe you know it. Cash starts to work at a car plant and cooks up a scheme to get himself a Cadillac–one piece at a time. He smuggles a different car part out of the factory everyday in his lunch pale. He says he will get it one piece at a time and it won’t cost him a dime. And with the price of cars today, that doesn’t sound too bad. In the end he is left with something closer to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein than a Cadillac, but it’s drivable and he gets the title. But we’re not here to talk about Cadillacs or Johnny Cash; we’re here to talk about Jesus, and the Prayer Book, and Fr. Chuck.

Come my Way, my Truth, my Life

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

I got to know Elaine quickly. She and her husband Gary lived close to the church in Stuttgart, just about a block away, in a little house with a big metal rooster out front. Elaine cleaned the church, so she was in and out a lot. And she was there every Sunday. Elaine sang on the first row–she sang loudly because she believed what she was singing. I tell you about her today because I think of her almost every time I read our gospel passage from John. Jesus gives us an invitation. He says, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Perhaps we can get tied up in questions about what if, and what about, hearing his statement as exclusionary, as pushing some people out. But I hear it as an invitation, an open door to knowing God completely and fully through Jesus Christ the Son of God. This invitation is about reeling us in close to the Father’s heart in a deep and abiding communion. When I hear this invitation, I think about Elaine; I think about her ordinary faithfulness. When Jesus says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life,” she believes him. When Jesus invites her into a relationship, she takes him up on the offer.