A New Brain-Shape (Sermon preached 30 May 2021)

Good morning! It is great to be with you. It is so good, isn’t it? After having to be physically distant for so long, we are beginning to actually share spaces with one another.

 Don’t get me wrong – technology is awesome. In fact, it has saved us. Thanks to Facebook and YouTube and Zoom, and the heroic efforts of some staff here, we have been able to stay connected, irrespective of location and time zone. So much so that even the naysayers among us are now convinced that in some circumstances, being present virtually is truly the way to go!

 

But that energetic exchange that happens when we are physically in one another’s presence; that back and forth, and give and take, with people we know and people we don’t, quite yet – people who we are curious about; who we find ourselves drawn to; who capture our imaginations? That being with, in person, is what we have been deprived of, for the most part, for over a year...(read more)

Keep Praying (Sermon preached 16 May 2021)

You probably already know this, but just in case you don’t, here in this community at St. Matthew’s a whole lot of people are convinced that prayer matters. That it makes a difference. We pray for one another, a lot. Privately. In small groups. And here in church. So many prayer requests find their way to me. Via emails, texts, phone calls, people ask for prayer for themselves, for family members, for friends; people they care about, people they know are struggling.

Sometimes a prayer request comes in from one source, and then later that same day, another person calls to make sure that I am aware, so I can add a name to the Prayers of the People. We have an Intercessory Prayer Group. A small band of prayer warriors who, every day, pray a confidential list of specific needs that gets updated monthly. And, one day in the not-too-far- distant future, I hope, our wonderful prayer ministers will once again, during Communion, pray with, lay hands on and anoint  those feeling a need to pray. 

 

It means a lot, doesn’t it? To have other people pray for us. People who don’t even really believe in the power of prayer still feel blessed by it...(read more)

Breathing God (Sermon preached 11 April 2021)

Happy Easter everyone! Today is an Easter Sunday, you know. In the liturgical year, there are seven Sundays of Easter – not “after” but “of”. The church in its wisdom, and guided by Luke’s chronology of events in the Book of Acts, designates an Easter season of fifty days. Fifty days during which “Alleluias” abound and, as one commentator put it so eloquently, we “live into the reality of what it means to be a community shaped by the dying and rising of Christ, by the expectation-shattering reality of life victorious over death”.

It’s a good thing we have fifty days! Because that sounds like the work of a lifetime to me - and not just of an individual. The lifetime of a parish. The lifetime of the Church, continuing through centuries, through millennia of Sundays. In this morning’s Gospel, though, John directs us back to the very first Easter Sunday...(read more)

What Do You See? (Sermon preached 21 March 2021)

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus”, the Greeks say to Philip in this morning’s reading from the twelfth chapter of John’s Gospel. I’ve heard, and you may have too, that those words can be found etched in wood, or engraved on a brass plate, or just printed on a piece of paper – in this or that church pulpit.

So this past week I googled it: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus - pulpit” and bingo - 7 million hits. And I can now confirm that you will find a “Sir we wish to see Jesus” sign of some kind at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto, St. John the Divine Episcopal in Houston, Westport Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, the parish church in Donegal, Ireland, and the Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles. Just to name a few...(read more)

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)