easter – Storied Grace

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.

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?

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.”