bible – Storied Grace

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.

But We Had Hoped

A sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter
April 19, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Acts 2:14a,36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

You can hear it in their voices–the two disciples walking toward Emmaus with the Stranger, telling him all that has happened to Jesus of Nazareth, their Lord, their friend. You can hear the grief in their voices. They say, “Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” But we had hoped. It’s a phrase laden with regret, with wondering, with sorrow. How many times have we said the same thing? But we had hoped the relationship could be repaired. But we had hoped our path would take us a different way. But we had hoped to be further along, more secure. And Natalie, sitting at the bedside of her husband Ron as he died from cancer: But we had hoped. There’s a longing there, accompanied by grief and resignation. And we, along with the two disciples, know what that’s like.

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.

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.