bible – Page 3 – Storied Grace

You Can’t Do Anything

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 9
July 6, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Readings: Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16 ; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Why does St. Paul spend so much time talking about circumcision? It is at the very least odd; and honestly, it is a little impolite. But here he is, yet again in Galatians, talking about circumcision. He wants the Galatians to know they do not need to be circumcised–he would even prefer that they were not. And here we are, centuries later, blushing, or at least trying to read quickly through the passage so as not to call attention. There are children present, and maybe even visitors who surely did not come to hear this. “Preacher,” you may be thinking, “move on and talk about the love of God, or forgiveness, or grace. For the sake of politeness, just ignore Paul.” But I can’t, because what St. Paul is talking about has everything to do with the love of God and forgiveness and grace.

Freed for Freedom

A sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 8
June 29, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Readings: Galatians 5:1,13-25 ; Luke 9:51-62

Free is not your right to choose
It’s answering what’s asked of you
To give the love you find until it’s gone

I don’t listen to secular music much. I am a church nerd through and through. My Spotify playlists are populated with the hymns of the Church, at least generally. The lines of the old hymns make me catch my breath, as the beauty and greatness of God are captured, or at least glimpsed, in a few words. But there are exceptions. There are a few non-hymns on my playlists with lines that make me breathless. Many of them come from the band the Avett Brothers, an American folk rock group. I quoted a few of those lines a moment ago, lines about freedom from their song “Ill with Want.” It’s a song about how greed consumes and leaves us sick and empty-handed. The only remedy, they sing, is the freedom found in giving love away, and ultimately giving ourselves away. For in the end that is what is asked of us by Jesus himself: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Or, from today’s gospel: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Free is not your right to choose
It’s answering what’s asked of you
To give the love you find until it’s gone

And they were afraid

A sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 7
June 22, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Luke 8:26-39

There’s some part of us that likes to be scared. I’m not talking about the innocent Halloween type of scared. I’m talking about something darker, something buried deep down in secret places. The type of darkness that would drive people to flock to roadside shows to see people trapped in cages, dressed in tatters–the outcasts of society, the sick, the scary ones. Deep down, in some dark place, we like to be scared.

Now What?

A sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter
June 1, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21; John 17:20-26

Now what? It’s a question for in-between times. It’s the question after a graduation–one all of our graduates we will honor today have no doubt heard. Now what? What comes next? It’s the question after a tragedy. Now what? How do we move on? It’s the question after surprise, after the unexpected is realized, whether good or ill. Now what? What’s around the next corner? It’s the question of the disciples on this seventh week after Easter. Jesus ascends into heaven 40 days after the Resurrection (that was last Thursday), and in his parting instructions he told them to wait for power from on high in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit will, indeed, come next week, on the feast of Pentecost. But on the seventh Sunday of Easter, with Jesus gone and the Holy Spirit not yet descending, we are in an in-between time, watching, waiting, wondering, straining to see around the corner, asking, well, now what?

Church Meetings

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 18, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35

There is perhaps nothing so dangerous as a church meeting called in haste. Our reading from Acts takes us to one. Peter has been called up to Jerusalem. All the big names are there. The senior warden is at the head of the table at the front of the room. The junior warden is there, too, with the rest of the vestry, all seated on the same side like Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” In front of them a podium, the hot seat. The room is full. Each table has a different group. Sometimes these groups disagree. Sometimes they fight among themselves. But today, they all seem to be on the same page. Peter is in trouble, and it’s time to hear from him directly. We’ve heard concerning rumors. Let’s sort it all out. Can you see the scene? Today’s is from the year 38 AD or so in Jerusalem, but the scene has been repeated time and time and time again in nearly every place. Yes, there’s nothing so dangerous as a church meeting called in haste.

Shepherd in the Dark

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

Readings: Psalm 23, John 10:22-30

“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.