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Sunday, November 17, 2024 - Outpouring of the Soul

This sermon was preached for Sunday, November 17, 2024. The texts for this sermon were: 1 Samuel 1:4-20,  1 Samuel 2:1-10,  Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25, and  Mark 13:1-8. I started learning to play viola in fourth grade and remained an absolutely mediocre player up through high school. My poor parents endured a lot trying to support our learning. I remember one particular elementary school orchestra concert, one of my first, one of those late evening concerts when they turned the lunch room into an auditorium and made all the parents sit in rows of folding chairs. At one point in one of our songs, I looked over at my dad’s face in the audience to see his eyes closed, his mouth turned down in a deep frown. I remember feeling awful in that moment, sure that my father was either terribly disappointed in my playing or totally bored to the point of nodding off. When I asked him about it later, my father, God bless his soul, explained that he was just concentrating on listening - that the
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Sunday, November 10, 2024 - Loving and tending

This sermon was preached for Sunday, November 10, 2024 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were: Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17,  Psalm 127,  Hebrews 9:24-28 and  Mark 12:38-44. There are many reasons why you may have chosen to come to church today. Perhaps it is simply what you do each Sunday, or maybe you had a role to play in the service. Perhaps this is where you have found God before and this is where you most trust God to show up again.  Some of you have told me you needed to be here today because you are looking for a reason to hope. Others of you have told me you want to know you're not alone in your fear, anger, and sense of betrayal this week. I know others of you are here seeking solace in the midst of a grief that has nothing to do with big national events but everything to do with faith and hope and love. It is also quite possible that you don’t know why you are here or what you need. Or whether you and God are on speaking terms right now. There are three things

Sunday, November 3, 2024 - No one dies alone

This sermon was preached for All Saints' Day, Sunday, November 3, 2024. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 25:6-9,  Psalm 24,  Revelation 21:1-6a,  and  John 11:32-44. My grandfather died five years ago this past Wednesday, on October 30. At the time, I remember being so grateful that it was a quote unquote “good death.” Stephen Honan was surrounded by all his children and his beloved wife in the end. I had anointed him and prayed those powerful prayers of release and peace, and Psalm 23, too. I took great comfort in how close his death was to All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ and All Souls’, too, holding on to the hope that in some mysterious way, his passing was made easier by the thinning of the barriers of this world and the next. In good Irish tradition, our family gathered around his body, cousins, uncles, aunts, and there was joy and life there, too. Two of the littlest great-grandkids had just begun to walk - a sign that the great family my grandfather began was continuing

Sunday, October 27, 2024 - Take heart

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 27, 2024 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were:  Job 42:1-6, 10-17,  Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22),  Hebrews 7:23-28, and  Mark 10:46-52. So I’m not a fan of the horror movie genre in general but I do love dystopian fiction. One monster that featured in both science fiction and Halloween-y stories is the zombie - the reanimated undead who go around trying to eat and/or infect people. If you watched or read any zombie stories, then you know there’s this classic trope that happens in pretty much every zombie flick. One member of the hero’s party - the friend, the mom, a survival buddy - gets bitten by a zombie but they don’t tell anyone. It’s only later, at a particularly dramatic moment, that they reveal they’ve been bitten but by then it’s way too late - now they’ve endangered everyone by hiding their wound. Maybe they even start turning into a zombie right then. I love how the trope is played out in the zombie parody movie, Shau

Sunday, October 20, 2024 - Right-sized

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 20, 2024 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for the sermon were: Job 38:1-7, (34-41),  Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b,  Hebrews 5:1-10, and  Mark 10:35-45. Last week on our family walk, my two year old and three year old were pointing out every huge truck that passed by - dump trucks, crane trucks, and carry-car trucks, always a favorite. “That truck is almost as big as my head!” my daughter would exclaim. “That truck is as big as my head!” my son would reply excitedly.  It’s not until four or five years old that most children are really able to understand “big,” bigger,” and “biggest” - and not until seven years old when most kids will consistently be able to order a sequence of objects by size. It’s why really little kids will try to fit their whole bodies into tiny matchbox cars. And why a toddler will often tell you that a tall, thin glass has more water in it than a short, fat one, even if they just saw you pour the same amount of water from

Sunday, October 13, 2024 - The Double Loss

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 13, 2024 in St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were: Job 23:1-9, 16-17,  Psalm 22:1-15,  Hebrews 4:12-16, and  Mark 10:17-31. Appalachia has been on my mind and heart and prayers quite a bit lately, especially the swaths of Tennessee and North Carolina hardest hit by Hurricane Helene. My own first encounters with the region were in high school, when my church youth group served with the critical home repair ministry, the Appalachia Service Project, for a week each summer. Later in college, I worked as a summer staffer for that same ministry, this time hosting the groups of churches who’d rotate through our center each week to do basic repair work on homes and trailers in the surrounding hollers. As staffers, we’d oversee and assign the multi-week projects, so we’d get to know the families we were serving pretty well. That summer - that work and those relationships - forced me to confront the heart-breaking complexities of Ame

Sunday, October 6, 2024 - Nourish & Strengthen

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 6, 2024 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for the sermon were:  Job 1:1; 2:1-10,  Psalm 26,  Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12, and  Mark 10:2-16. That is not the Gospel I would have chosen for my first sermon with my new church, if it was up to me. It’s a doozy on any Sunday but especially when you don’t know the people you are preaching to very well. I don’t know who among you has been hurt by divorce, and who has been saved by it. I don’t know who struggles with the boxes of male and female, or who has been wounded by the Church’s historically strict vision for what marriage should or can be. I don’t know how this passage has been preached or interpreted to you before - full judgment or with abundant grace. But if this passage feels like a bit of a trap, it’s because it is one. The Pharisees pose this question about divorce to Jesus precisely because it was contested and controversial, in their day and still in ours. The leaders are asking not so