Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached for Sunday, June 30, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Psalm 130,  2 Corinthians 8:7-15, and  Mark 5:21-43. It also references the previous Sunday's Gospel, Mark 4:35-41, well as the children's message book for this morning, The Three Questions   written and illustrated by Jon J Muth , that is based on the Leo Tolstoy short story, The Three Questions. Nikolai and Leo the Old Turtle from the children's book, The Three Questions written and illustrated by Jon J Muth, based on the Leo Tolstoy short story, The Three Questions. As many of you are aware, I was recently in the throes of an intense life decision. I reached out to one of my wisest priest friends from seminary, Father Phil Hooper, about what to do. In the middle of tying myself up in knots about all sorts of considerations and details, bombarding him with questions about this and that, he paused and texted back: “Can I give you my honest answer?”...

  This homily was preached on Wednesday, June 19 for the burial Eucharist of Irene G. The texts for this service were: Revelation 7:9-17, Psalm 71:1-6 and John 11:21-27.  My name is the Rev. Mia Kano, I’m the priest-in-charge here at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. I had the honor of being Irene’s priest for the last two years of her life. Thanks to her devoted son, David, and her dear friend, Mary, I saw Irene twice a week, every week for a year - then once every week after that on Sundays. Now I’m a pretty new priest. I will always be grateful for the little ways Irene set about teaching me how to be a better priest. She is, even now, teaching each of us one last time. You see, Irene was well-practiced in grief. You don’t get to be almost 87- you don’t love the way she loved - without knowing how to live with grief. Irene walked with some big griefs in her long, love-filled life, and she knew where to turn for reassurance and encouragement - to her God, her churc...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, June 2, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts of this sermon were: Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17,  2 Corinthians 4:5-12, and  Mark 2:23-3:6. In Rabbi Sharon Brous’ recent book on faith, community, and connection, The Amen Effect, Rabbi Brous tells a story from one of her days as a seminary student. She describes being in the midst of a joyful worship celebration at the synagogue one Saturday. As the congregation burst into spontaneous dancing, she noticed a forlorn figure making her way to her. The woman explained to Brous that her mother had recently died. The mourner wanted to know if it was okay for her to join in the dancing. As a seminary student, Brous began making all sorts of calculations in her head: Jewish mourning customs would prohibit the daughter from dancing so soon after the mother’s death but at the same time, the dancing was in the context of worship…Finally, totally flummoxed and afraid of getting it wrong, Brous po...

This sermon was preached for Day of Pentecost Sunday, May 19, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Acts 2:1-21,  John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15, and  Psalm 104:25-35, 37. May God’s word only be spoken and God’s word only be heard. In seminary and priest training, we spent just about as much time learning how to listen well as we did learning how to speak and teach. This is because the key to all loving relationships is skillful listening. And good connection is all about listening to understand rather than listening to respond. Now one of the most important types of listening priests and chaplains-in-training are drilled on is called reflective listening. At its most basic, reflective listening is simply reflecting back to the people what they just said. Your response is your understanding of what they said. Done without skill, it can sometimes land as sort of annoying. Yes, yes, that’s what I said. But the deeper skill to reflective listening is ...

  This sermon was preached for "Peace Sunday," the seventh Sunday of Easter, May 12, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: 1 John 5:9-13,  John 17:6-19, and  Psalm 1. In the hospital chaplaincy office where I worked one summer, there were two beautiful pottery bowls that sat on a small table by the door. One bowl was usually empty but the other right beside it was filled with smooth stones that were the exact right size to fit in the palm of my hand. The bowls and stones were pretty enough that at first glance they might appear to be an odd sort of decoration. But it wasn't a display - the bowls and the stones were an invitation to a particular kind of prayer practice for each of us chaplains. See, one of the hardest parts of serving as a chaplain is that you are most often with people for just one brief, intense moment in their lives - right after a birth or a death, right before a surgery or in the midst of a journey with cancer - and...

This sermon was preached for Rogation Sunday, May 5, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: 1 John 5:1-6,  John 15:9-17, and  Psalm 98. This is not the sermon for today, at least not all of it. I hope today’s sermon will be preached to you not by me, but by the St. Mark’s grounds - by all of God’s creation that surrounds this church on either side - both the gardens we’ve cultivated and the natural gardens that have been guided only by God’s hands. We will be going out into the St. Mark’s gardens toward the end of our service to bless them, but also to be blessed by them. If you choose not to join us for whatever reason, then I hope sometime today or this week, you will go out into a yard or park to listen and look for the rest of this sermon.  This is a quintessentially Anglican exercise. Episcopalians are guided in faith by three sources: scripture, tradition, and our personal experiences. Sometimes we talk about them like they are thr...

  This sermon was preached for the Feast Day of St. Mark's on Sunday, April 21, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Ephesians 4:7-8,11-16,  Mark 16:15-20, and  Psalm 2:7-10. A book from my own childhood has made it into our nightly bedtime routine a lot lately. It’s called “Rocks in My Pockets.” It’s a sort of folksy parable about a poor family who lives on the top of a very windy mountain with very rocky soil. Their grandpa tells them they must always keep rocks in their pockets at all times or else they will be blown away by the wind. The rocks have other uses, too: the resourceful family uses them as balls thrown back and forth, they rub them in their hands every night during storytime, they even warm them in the fire and use them as foot-warmers on winter nights. They are ordinary rocks pulled from the earth of their mountaintop, but over time, the rocks become smooth and shiny and beautiful.  Rocks in My Pockets by Marc Har...