Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached on Sunday, October 6 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Wellesley, MA. The texts for this sermon were:  Lamentations 1:1-6 ,  Psalm 137 ,  2 Timothy 1:1-14 , and  Luke 17:5-10 . Have you ever been sitting in church, enjoying the excellent music, snuggling up to your loved ones, maybe finally taking a deep breath for once, grateful for a time away from the constant barrage of stress and work and politics and panic…maybe you’ve been looking forward to a space of calm and quiet to reconnect to a God of love and deep joy…and then Boom. The first scripture passage is an angry tirade about a vengeful God from some Old Testament prophet. Or…Boom. The Psalm literally ends with a gleeful verse about slaughtering one’s enemy’s children. What do we do with that? Why do we read these verses? Why include the Book of Lamentations in our lectionary at all? The other day I was doing one of those mindless scroll-throughs on one of those time-wasting ...

This sermon was preached on Sunday, September 15 at St. Andrew's, Wellesley, MA. The readings for this sermon are:  Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 ,  Psalm 14 ,  1 Timothy 1:12-17 , and  Luke 15:1-10 . I had this Christian history professor in seminary who exuded compassion and warmth in every little thing he did. He was an older professor but we all absolutely adored him and affectionately referred to his classes as “Story Time with Bill.” He was the professor who, when you came to him to ask for an extension, would first make sure that everything was alright in your life and that your pastoral needs were listened to and taken care of. His comments on papers were thoughtful and encouraging -- and he always gave opportunities for students to rewrite and improve. Students were whole people to Dr. Stafford. We were also all future church leaders of some sort, mostly future priests. Dr. Stafford, like all good teachers, was determined to teach us more than history. In who...

This sermon was preached for the annual sermon ecumenical pulpit swap at Wellesley Hills Congregational Church in Wellesley, MA. The passages for this sermon were: Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 and Luke 12:32-40 . Some time this morning, Protestant Christians in the traditions who follow the Revised Common Lectionary--Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others--are being confronted by the same passage from the Prophet Isaiah that we just heard. Even though you make many prayers I will not listen , says God through the Prophet Isaiah. Your hands are full of blood . I wonder how many other preachers felt that line echo throughout their week, as it did for me, each time I went to pray. And again, whenever I sat down to write this sermon this week, two images kept popping into my head. The first was a graphic photo of carnage from one of the mass shootings from this past weekend, either Dayton, Ohio or El Paso, TX. I can’t remember which one, but that doesn’t matter because ...

This sermon was preached on Sunday, May 5, 2019 for the last Sunday at Episcopal Church of Our Savior, Oakland, CA. The readings for this sermon were:  Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) ,  Revelation 5:11-14 .  John 21:1-19 , and  Psalm 30 . The first part of our Gospel passage today comes at a moment when the disciples are learning to recognize Jesus’s presence among them in new ways. Jesus no longer walks and talks with them as a teacher and friend. If you remember in the Gospel last week, Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples where they were gathered in fear. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus arrives in the moment of scarcity and stress for the disciples and leads them into plenty and joy. Let’s look again at the ways the different disciples recognize Jesus: - One disciple recognizes Jesus in the surprising abundance filling their nets. - Peter recognizes Jesus when his friend testifies, “It is the Lord!” - The others know him as Jesus in the shared meal he...

This sermon was preached for Good Friday on Friday, April 19 at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Oakland, CA. The readings for this sermon is the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of John ( John 18:1-19:42 ). Last year, a couple of my friends asked me to give a speech at their wedding. As I was preparing my remarks, I asked Alec and Rachel to tell me about when they knew they wanted to marry each other. Rachel wrote to me that while she knew she would marry Alec for a long time, she had been waiting for the moment when she knew she was ready. That moment came just about a year before their wedding, when Alec’s grandmother fell very ill. A couple of days before she died, Alec and Rachel were in the hospital visiting his grandmother. Ella Fitzgerald’s “Cry me a river” was playing and Alec’s grandfather was sitting next to her and holding her hand. That moment was incredibly sad, but it was also beautiful. Suddenly Rachel knew. She wanted that with Alec, all of it—marriage, children,...

This sermon was preached for the Third Sunday of Lent, Sunday, March 24 at Grace Episcopal Church in Medford, MA. The readings for this sermon are:  Exodus 3:1-15 , 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 , Luke 13:1-9 , and Psalm 63:1-8 . I was doing some reflecting with some of my classmates as we prepare to graduate from seminary and I shared that one of the main lessons I keep learning again and again is that everyone I meet is pretty much just doing their best. Most of the time, we’re all flawed human beings just doing our darnedest. One of my classmates thought about that for a second and then said, “I have a story for you.” And she told me about when she served at as a parish administrator in a church in England. There was this woman that came to the church week after week and asked for five bus tokens. Never said why, never asked for anything more. Just five tokens for the bus week in and week out. Until, one week the woman stopped coming. When she appeared some time later, she came in ...

This sermon was preached for a Liturgical Leadership class on Wednesday, February 27 in All Saints' Chapel, Church Divinity School of the Pacific. The readings for the sermon are: Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) , Revelation 5:11-14 , John 21:1-19 , and Psalm 30 . There's a whole bunch of miracles packed into this Gospel scene. There's Jesus appearing after his death, that's a big one. Then there's the miraculous catch of fish after a night of empty nets -- one-hundred and fifty-three of them, which commentaries say represent all of the 153 different species of fish you can possibly find in the Sea of Galilee. There's Jesus' voice traveling hundreds of yards over wind and waves to reach the disciples. But there's another miracle tucked in here, so tiny, so inconsequential, that it's easy to miss. “And though there were so many, the net was not torn.” Throughout the Gospel of John, we can trace this theme of unity: Jesus’ high priestly prayer that the c...