Tag: christianity

A sermon for Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras to celebrate retiring the church debt
March 4, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Readings: John 1:19-28

Who are you? This is the question for John the Baptist today. Who are you? You’re preaching some crazy stuff. Who are you? You’re agitating the comfortable and comforting the agitated. Who are you? John is clear about who he is and about who he is not. He is not the Messiah. He is not the Savior. He is not God in the flesh. But he is the one who has been sent to proclaim his coming, to get the road readied, to command our attention. 

Continue reading “Who Are You?”

A sermon preached for the Last Sunday after Epiphany
February 22, 2022, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Stuttgart, Arkansas

This sermon was preached three years ago immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While it is not what I will preach this Sunday, it remains timely.

***

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies; 
Yet, dotted everywhere, 
Ironic points of light 
Flash out wherever the Just 
Exchange their messages: 
May I, composed like them 
Of eros and of dust, 
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair, 
Show an affirming flame. 

Those words were written by W. H. Auden, a 20th century poet who helped translate the psalms in our own Book of Common Prayer. They are an excerpt from a poem entitled September 1, 1939. September 1, 1939: the day Germany invaded Poland, kicking off the bloody second world war. In the first stanza of the poem, Auden writes, 

Waves of anger and fear 
Circulate over the bright 
And darkened lands of earth, 
Obsessing our private lives; 
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night. 

Continue reading “The Affirming Flame”

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

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1

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. 

Continue reading “Trees by the Water”

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.”

Continue reading “Never Buy a Boat”

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. 

Continue reading “The 8th Day Promise”