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Trees by the Water

A sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
February 16, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Over and over, Holy Scripture compares us to trees. I know you’re flattered. We heard two such references today. In our reading from Jeremiah, the person who trusts in God is like a tree by streams of water. So, too, in the psalm. The righteous person, the psalmist says, is like that tree, connected to live-giving waters, that bears fruit and with leaves that do not wither. Both readings present us with another option, though. In each, the person who does not trust in God but tries to save themselves, the person who seeks to do evil, the person who takes the world into their hands–that person is like a dried-out shrub, like chaff which the wind blows away.

Never Buy a Boat

A sermon for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany
February 9, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Luke 5:1-11

“Never get a truck because people will never stop asking to borrow it.” I got that advice from a good friend in Sewanee. We were sitting in his living room, and he was ribbing me about my car. “You need a new car,” he had said. At that time I was driving the best my high school wages could buy 15 years before: A Mazda Protege with a salvaged title. Over the years the A/C had gone out, the paint was rusting off, and the car squealed loud enough to wake the dead. Perhaps worst of all, it had a faulty seatbelt in the front passenger seat. Molly often got stuck in that seatbelt and had to figure out a way to slither out, once in a full-length evening gown and high heels. “Yes, you need a new car, Mark,” my friend said. “But never get a truck because people will never stop asking to borrow it.” If we asked Simon Peter today, he might tell us something similar: “Never buy a boat, because people will never stop asking you if they can use it.”

Tracing Glory

A sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 26, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Luke 4:14-30

“In Epiphany we trace all the glory of his grace.” Those words belong to a hymn in our previous hymnal, the Hymnal 1940. The hymn explains the seasons of the church year. It’s especially appropriate for children, and it’s also a favorite of Kathy Randel’s, our outreach coordinator, who has made sure I know it. And, to the hymn’s credit, it explains exactly what we are doing this Epiphany season. We are recounting how the glory of God is revealed through Christ: as the magi follow a star and visit a child; as Jesus is baptized and the Father speaks; as Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding; and eventually, as Jesus is transfigured in dazzling white on a mountaintop.

Offer What You Have

A sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany
Annual Meeting Sunday
January 19, 2025 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: John 2:1-11

“They have no wine.” Our gospel today is Jesus’s first sign, or miracle, in the gospel of John. It takes place at a wedding, and the mother of Jesus tells him of the problem. The wine has run dry. In Jesus’s time and place, where honor and shame were a currency, this was a serious problem with serious consequences. The wine’s run out; do something about it. And Jesus, backed into a corner by his mother, does exactly that. The servants fill the jars with the water they have, water that may have been dirty and far from potable. They draw some water out, give it to the steward, and it becomes a wine.

Muddy Waters

A sermon for Epiphany 1: the Baptism of Our Lord
January 12, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

I’ve only been snorkeling a few times. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t in some crystal-clear water in the Caribbean, or in some beautiful coral reef. No, I went snorkeling in a muddy creek in Missouri. It wasn’t my idea. A friend of mine went all the time and loved it, so I went with him and his dad. We pulled the car off the state highway by a bridge and hopped into the very muddy water. You couldn’t see a thing. The water was brown and dirty, and full of who knows what. Before we got in, my friend’s dad warned us to watch out for cottonmouths. He then told us three or four stories of coming snout to snout with cottonmouths that were at least seven feet long. I learned later that he liked to exaggerate. But it didn’t matter: from the moment I stepped foot in the water, I was concerned about what I would meet.

The 8th Day Promise

Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Name
January 1, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 2:15-21

Every proper baptismal font should have eight sides. Don’t worry, ours does. The eight sides are symbolic for the eighth day, the day of resurrection, the day outside the bounds of our normal time, space, and seven-day week. The eighth day is a new day in a new creation.

Shepherds and Angels

A sermon for Christmas Eve
December 24, 2024, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Luke 2:1-20

Just about every year I was a shepherd. I imagine parents fought over whose children would get to be shepherds at the pageant. The costumes were easier. A bathrobe for the tunic, a bath towel for the headcovering, a stick, and you’re set. Every year, dressed in my bathrobe, I would stand there as one of the teenagers pretended to be the Archangel Gabriel, announcing good news, usually without much conviction: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

In Memoriam: Joe Mouton

A sermon for the Funeral of Alexandre “Joe” Bruce Mouton
November 30, 2024

Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; Revelation 21:2-7; Matthew 5:1-10

A joyful man. A gracious host. Someone with a twinkle in his eye that betrayed his mischievousness. A funny, funny person who probably wouldn’t mind if I started today with a Boudreaux and Thibodeaux joke (but don’t worry, I decided not to–if you want to know which one I would use, come see me after). A loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Today we gather to give thanks for the life of such a man. We give thanks for the gift he was in our lives–the gift he will continue to be. Today we commend him to God, the giver of all good gifts, confident that God will pull Joe to himself in grace, mercy, and love. Because Joe was baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, he is marked as God’s child forever.

Pilate or Mary?

A sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 29
November 24, 2024, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Hot Springs, AR

Readings: John 18:33-37

“Are you the king of the Jews?” That’s Pontius Pilate’s question for Jesus. Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday after Pentecost, the last Sunday of the church year. Today is a triumphant day, when we declare that Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. And yet, curiously, our gospel reading is not about Christ seated in heaven, but rather about Christ before Pilate: Christ accused, Christ on trial, Christ on his way to his cross.

From Rubble to New Creation

A sermon for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 28
November 17, 2024, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Mark 13:1-8

I am sure you remember the day; I know I do. It was March 31, 2023. A tornado hit Little Rock and continued east. By the time it got to the delta town of Wynne, it was an EF-3. On the ground for 73 miles, it was as wide as 13 football fields with winds as high as 150 mph. The town was devastated. Four people died; 26 injured. The little Episcopal church in the town, Grace Church, which had been closed for a few years, took a direct hit. The brick edifice was leveled, turned into rubble. Not long thereafter, I joined a team of clergy and lay folks from East Arkansas who went to sift through the rubble and sort those bricks that had been so violently thrown down by the storm.