Sermons

Time is a major concern in our lessons this morning from Paul and Matthew. “You know what time it is,” Paul writes to the church in Rome. The day is dawning, he tells them in so many words, salvation is near, each day only bringing us closer to Jesus’ return.

Jesus has come not to be just one more king (or prime minister or president or whatever). He has come rather to usher in an entirely new order, characterized by new hope, grace and above all love – the kind of love that never gets tired of extending and receiving second chances.

The fact is, we do not know what the future holds for each of us, whether conflict or peace, comfort or hardship. But we can face it with confidence, assured that whatever comes, God is faithful. We may not know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future. Come what may, God will meet us, will be with us in our need, and will give us the words and strength and courage we need to face what we must face. “In the world you will have trouble,” Jesus assures us, “but t

William Willimon, former chaplain at Duke University, tells about the time Carlyle Marney came to his campus. A student asked, "Dr. Marney, would you say a word or two about the resurrection of the dead?" Marney replied, "I will not discuss that with people like you." "Why not?" asked the student. "I don't discuss such matters with anyone under 30." Marney explained, "Look at you, in the prime of life, potent - never have you known honest-to-God failure, betrayal, impotency,

If at the end of the day, we take anything away from today’s celebration of the Feast of All Saints, it is an appreciation that “church matters,” the community matters, the communion of saints matters. Christianity is not a solo activity. Being Christian is not a do-it-yourself project. We are saved not individually but as part of the church. It takes a community to make a Christian, and a community to be Christian.

In the werewolf, as with other classic fictional monsters, we see a kind of “negative image” of the Gospel, what we might become apart from God, apart from salvation in Christ. And we are therefore put in mind of the great gift that we’ve been given by the grace of Christ. Christ has come to restore us to God, so that we might no longer howl at the moon, in frustration or anger, but instead shout praise in love and gratitude to our Maker and Redeemer.

When I think about what is the greatest challenge we Christians face today, it is not the coarseness of mass media, or the infringement of our First Amendment rights, or even Sunday morning soccer games. No, the greatest threat we face in our life with God is not any of these usual suspects; rather it’s our refusal to wrestle with God’s Word.

Jesus asks his disciples, if a slave should be rewarded for just doing what they are told to do. No, of course not. Just so, Jesus says, when believers have done what is expected of us, what God commanded, no matter how difficult or how impactful, we should say, “We are worthless slaves. We have only done what we ought to have done.” You can’t find a more explicitly demeaning and denigrating statement of humanity’s state than that.

If you ever study the parables, one of the things you quickly appreciate is how timeless they are, how no matter whether you are living in the 1st century or the 9th or the 21st, they still resonate. The characters and the situations depicted in the stories are ones we can all relate to. It’s natural, then, that in telling the stories today, we might imagine names for the characters, to make them even more relatable. So, in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, say, maybe we’ll ca

Here, Jesus tells the story of a lazy, dishonest manager who gets called on the carpet by his boss for wasting the company’s money. He’s told he has till tomorrow morning to get the books in order to give a full account of his management. Realizing he’s in hot water, the manager gets an idea. He goes to some of his boss’s clients and offers to mark down what they owe. When they ask why, the manager winks at them and says, "Don't ask, but just remember I did you a favor once."

Two years ago, the residents of New York City were surprised to see a new statue adorning the appellate courthouse. Next to statues of famous lawgivers like Moses, Alfred the Great, and Emperor Justinian stood an eight-foot tall, golden figure of a woman. Only this woman was like no woman you’ve ever seen. She had long braids that were curled up to look like rams’ horns and, in the place of arms and feet, she bore a bundle of tentacles. While not exactly menacing, the figure

Transcendence may be dismissed, but the transcendentals—the good, true, and beautiful—continue to exist and to attract us. Few people can honestly say they have no interest at all in these transcendent realities. So, here we have an opportunity to engage with non-believers, to connect their yearning for the good, the true, and the beautiful to God who is goodness, truth and beauty himself.

If there was ever a gospel reading that invited a polite yawn, today’s lesson from Luke might be it. In this passage, Jesus comes across like some sort of 1st-century Miss Manners as he divvies out advice about where to sit when you’re a guest and whom to invite when you are hosting your own dinner.

Proper 16C: Luke 13.10-17 “Now, don’t go getting any ideas.” That’s the message the synagogue leader has for everyone gathered who’d just witnessed the healing of the crippled women. “Not here, not today, not for the rest of you. It’s not right. It’s not proper. It’s the Sabbath. You’ve got six other days to be healed. The Sabbath is off limits. Come back tomorrow.”   Can you imagine seeing someone who’s disabled, who’s been disabled for years, getting healed, cured of their

"I have come to set fire to the earth, fire! Oh, I can’t wait to see it all up in flames! Do you think I've come to bring peace? No! Peace is boring! Strife, division! I've come to split up families, divide homes, turn father against son, mother against daughter. Fire! Fire!” Luke has, believe it or not, softened Jesus’ words, for in Matthew’s version Jesus sounds downright violent: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." A sword!  

More often than not, in everyday usage, “faith” is thought of as being the opposite of reason. Faith is how we believe in something that has no objective basis, “for which there is no proof,” as the dictionary has it. But from that perspective, one could “have faith” that Pluto is made of bleu cheese, or that the city of Richmond will grind to a halt tomorrow on account of a freak snowstorm. One might argue that faith in God is of a different sort than those outlandish  examp

“Teach us to pray,” the disciples ask in this morning’s Gospel. Jesus usually teaches his disciples without their asking to be taught. But with prayer here, it’s different. In this case, the disciples know that they don’t know how to pray, at least they don’t know how to pray like Jesus, so they ask him for instruction.