Proclaim by Word and Example

  This sermon was preached for the Last Sunday After Epiphany on Sunday, March 2, 2025 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon was: Exodus 34:29-35,  2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2,  Luke 9:28-36, and  Psalm 99. Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” This line reminded me of that moment on backpacking trips - I’m sure it’s happened more than once - toward the end of the hike or maybe even the midpoint, let’s be honest - when I’m exhausted and panting and my feet have blisters and my backpack feels so so heavy. The sun’s going down but there’s still so far to go to get to the camping site and I just want to turn to my companion and say, what about here? Can’t we just stop here? Here looks good. Let’s make a dwelling here.  But of course, whoever I’m with urges me on to where we are actually headed - the safer, drier place up ahead. The place we are meant to go...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, February 23, 2025 for the seventh Sunday after Epiphany, and the last Sunday of Black History Month. The texts for this sermon were: Genesis 45:3-11, 15,  1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50,  Luke 6:27-38, and  Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42. This sermon draws from the work of Dr. James Cone, Dr. Delores Williams, and Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas.  Growing up in public school in Connecticut in the 90s, it’s funny to me now to look back at how Christianity stuck its way into my secular classrooms. There was Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and the African-American spirituals we sang in music class. There was that terrifying day in September 2001 when our teachers openly prayed with us. And then there was the Golden Rule, hanging up on a poster on my classroom wall, justified perhaps because it is not an exclusively Christian teaching, but has relatives in Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and most other major world religions. “Do unto others as you would have th...

This sermon was preached for the sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Sunday, February 16, 2025. The texts for this sermon were: Jeremiah 17:5-10,  1 Corinthians 15:12-20,  Luke 6:17-26, and  Psalm 1. I’m not ashamed to say that my husband and I checked off all the first-time parent stereotypes quite admirably at my eldest’s first pediatric appointment. We came with a whole long list of anxious questions that all boiled down to - are we doing this wrong? Now our pediatrician was one of those wise practitioners who had seen it all and he had seen my anxious perfectionism coming from a mile away.  Dr. Blumenthal told us something at that first appointment when my son was barely a week old that I still think about a lot - the goal, he said, is not that your child never cries. In fact, if your child never cries you are doing it wrong. The goal is to raise a resilient human adult. Sometimes that’ll mean tears. What, am I supposed to force them down into their carseat? Other ...

  This sermon was preached for the online virtual worship service of St. Andrew's for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 9, 2025. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 6:1-8,  1 Corinthians 15:1-11,  Luke 5:1-11, and  Psalm 138. In labor with my first child, my son, there came that moment when the midwife looked me in the eyes and said, “This next push will do it.” All of a sudden, the entire weight of the enormity of what I was doing - bringing a new human being into the world - came crashing down on me.  I just kept saying, I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I can’t do this. But I didn’t mean the pushing part, I meant all of it. I wasn’t ready to be someone’s mother. How could I ever have believed I could be someone’s mother. God bless my twin sister, who stepped in at that point, looked me in the eyes and said in her best matter-of-fact emergency room nurse voice, “Mia, this is happening.” She might have said something encouraging, too, like you’...

This sermon was preached for the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord (Candlemas), Sunday, February 2, 2025 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were: Malachi 3:1-4,  Hebrews 2:14-18,  Luke 2:22-40, and  Psalm 84. Sometimes a song will come to me as a background refrain to my days. This week, I found myself singing a particular song to my two-year-old at bedtime; a praise and worship song I learned a decade ago in the Episcopal Service Corps. It’s called Beautiful Things by Michael Gungor. The lyrics are simple enough for my toddler to begin picking up on the words. But what I really love about this song is that it begins with questions. Just as with so many psalms, these questions meet us in our very human wondering and doubt, in our grief and despair.  The songwriter, Michael Gungor, wrote Beautiful Things with his wife, Lisa, in 2011, when he was 30 years old. “All this pain,” the song begins. Looking around at the poverty, violence and desperat...

This sermon was preached for Annual Meeting Sunday, January 26, 2025 and references the January 21, 2025 sermon by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Diocese of Washington. The texts for this sermon were: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10,  1 Corinthians 12:12-31a,  Luke 4:14-21, and  Psalm 19. Did you know that churches can be reviewed online, out of five stars and everything? Look up any church on Google maps and you can see how people - visitors and life-long members - rate the church from one to five stars and why. Facebook also has the ability for folks to review church pages. I find these reviews hilarious, but also somewhat unsettling. Church, after all, is not a product to be consumed or even a performance to be observed. Worship and liturgy is co-created, by everyone who shows up. You change a worship service the moment you step into it. You change a church with your presence. This is perhaps most obvious in small churches. Especially on Sundays like ...