preaching – Page 4 – Storied Grace

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.

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.”

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.