shepherd – Storied Grace

Shepherd in the Dark

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

“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.”

In Memoriam: Mary Andrews

A sermon for the funeral of Mary Andrews
January 18, 2025

Readings: Psalm 23, Matthew 5:1-10

Today we gather to give thanks to God for a wonderful lady. We gather to pray; to support her family, friends, and all who mourn. And we gather because we have a sure and certain hope that nothing, not even death, will separate Mary or any of us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because Mary was baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, she is with Christ even now, held in his arms of mercy, peace, and love.

Shepherding Us Home

A sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 11
July 21, 2024, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs

Readings: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56; Psalm 23

In today’s reading from Mark, Jesus and his disciples are trying to get away. Since the beginning of Mark, Jesus has been going at a breakneck speed. He’s baptized by John, sent off to the wilderness, calls his disciples, heals and teaches and debates with religious authorities, stills a storm. In this chapter alone he has gone to his hometown to preach, been rejected, and commissioned his disciples to go out to preach ahead of him, fed the 5,000 and walked on the water. Jesus has been busy and he needs a break. But try as he might, he can’t get away, not quite yet. He’s met by crowds of people on the shore seeking him out. And when he sees them, he cannot help but have compassion. The crowds need Jesus, and he’s there. He shows up.