Just What We've Signed Up For (Sermon preached 28 February 2021)

Ever since Stefanie’s sermon a couple of weeks ago about the healing of Peter’s mother, when she introduced the idea of six-word memoirs (remember? Because Jesus resurrected her, she served?), a lot of us have been composing pithy summaries of our experiences of God, the pandemic, or just what we are feeling in the moment. For example: Feeling lonesome; have mask; will drive. So many desserts; so little time.

Earlier this week, when I sat down with today’s Gospel reading, I got to imagining what Peter might have come up with, when Jesus started talking about the Son of Man needing to suffer and die, and his followers needing to deny themselves and take up crosses. And the six words that almost immediately came to me were Not what I signed up for... (read more)

An Epiphany of Love (Sermon preached 14 February 2021)

Today is the last Sunday after Epiphany. And every year on the last Sunday after Epiphany, we hear the story of the Transfiguration. All three synoptic Gospels include this mother of all epiphanies, or manifestations (that’s what epiphany means), of God’s presence and purpose in Jesus of Nazareth.

Which means that this epic story gets preached on, over and over again. And therein lies the challenge: how does one, year in and year out, keep coming up with things to say? In the beginning I did what most newly minted seminary grads do...(read more)

The Worst Sermon Ever (Sermon preached 24 January 2021)

Okay everyone, I am about to deliver – well, actually, repeat – probably the worst sermon in the history of sermons. The good news is, it won’t take long. In the original Hebrew, it’s just five words. And in most English translations, only eight. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown”. That’s it.

Notice – there is no mention of God. No promises of forgiveness. No words of exhortation. And if this very short sermon that actually feels more like a threat sounds familiar, it’s because we all heard it just a few minutes ago in this morning’s Old Testament lesson from the book of Jonah. It just went by really fast! This worst sermon in the history of sermons, that was preached by maybe the most reluctant preachers in the history of preachers. The most reluctant preacher and, without a doubt, one of the most effective. Because, as a result of his preaching, we are told in the next verse, an entire city-full of heathens believe God. So much so that God changes God’s mind, and doesn’t destroy them. (read more)

Magi's Journey, Our Journey (Sermon preached 3 January 2021)

I am pretty sure that it was not during the first week in my systematic theology class that the professor, who also happened to be the academic dean, began his systematic destruction of sacred cows. You know what I mean by sacred cows, right? Those cherished, long held and unquestioned tenets of our faith that we had all brought along with us as we began our seminary studies.

 

But definitely by the end of the second week he had started dismantling beliefs that we had always simply accepted as “true”. “Every point of view is a view from a point,”  he would say as he separated us from what we took to be undisputed aspects of the faith. And showed us how they were, in fact, time-bound and contextual. It didn’t mean they weren’t true, necessarily, Just maybe true in a different way. (read more)

All Mary All the Time (Sermon preached 20 December 2020)

 If I tell you that today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, is Mary Sunday – which means it’s all Mary, all the time; with the Magnificat taking the place of the Psalm, and the Annunciation as the Gospel story… and if I tell you that this sermon is going to be all about what this teen-aged peasant girl has to teach us about spiritual power…and if I tell you that that means taking a deep dive into topics like receptivity and gestation and giving birth to God…

If I tell you all that, you just might start thinking that this is one of those times when a woman preacher is going to make up for all of those sermons about fishermen and tax collectors and prodigal sons and good Samaritans and laborers in vineyards. All of those men who take up most of the space in the Gospel stories we hear...(read more)

Pleading for God to Come (Sermon preached 29 November 2020)

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…”

How’s that for an opening line on the first Sunday of Advent! (Advent being the season when we watch and wait for God to arrive in the birth of a sweet baby in a manger.) This desperate plea is almost a demand: “God, if you would just get down here; and remind the world of what you can do.” And now I’m paraphrasing a little more: “Come down out of wherever you are in that glorious heavenly dwelling; down into this wasteland where we are all sick, and unclean, and fading, and failing. Come before there’s no one left to remember you.” (read more)

Keeping Our Lamps Burning (Sermon preached 8 November 2020)

I don’t know about you, but as far as I am concerned, if ever there was a week to remind us what running out of oil can feel like, it’s this past one.

 

I sat down on Thursday morning to try to start writing this sermon (yes, I am that slow), and my lamp was just about dry. I kept searching online, riffling through notes, hoping to scare up just a little oil to fuel just a bit of light. Only to wind up staring out the window, or worse, distracting myself by checking the news.

 

And it’s not just this election that has left so many of us exhausted and empty (though Lord knows the whole runup to last Tuesday has been more than enough to do that). It’s months of being on edge, in a constant state of hyperarousal, because of Covid. It’s living in a digital world, bombarded by messages that are, frankly, guaranteed to make us feel anxious or insecure. It’s social unrest. It’s fires. It’s the threat of climate change. It’s this year of 2020 that has just kept on giving. (read more)