Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached on Wednesday, October 18, 2017 for the Feast of St. Luke at All Saints' Chapel, Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Texts for this sermon were: Sirach 38:1-4,6-10,12-1 , 2 Timothy 4:5-13 , Luke 4:14-21 , and Psalm 147 or 147:1-7 . One night in the hospital I was called down to the post-operation floor, for a gentleman whose heart had stopped after surgery. I was there to stand by his son as he watched his father receive CPR, be transferred up to the ICU, and receive CPR again when his heart stopped a second time and was put on full life support, waiting for the rest of his family to arrive. Finally late into the night the son asked to spend some time with his father alone so I left the room and headed to the nearest phone to check in with the operator about another Code Blue. As I was picking up the phone, an exhausted young doctor in scrubs sitting next to the phone pulled back from the computer and put his head in his hands and said more to himself t...

This sermon was preached on Thursday, October 5, 2017 for Introduction to Homiletics. The texts for this sermon were:   Sirach 38:1-4,6-10,12-1 ,  2 Timothy 4:5-13 ,  Luke 4:14-21 , and  Psalm 147 or 147:1-7 . "God counts the number of the stars  and calls them all by their names." Are you exhausted yet, by the ordinariness of atrocity? The stark familiarity of the mass shooting liturgical dance. I feel as though I know every move, every step back and forth across the pockmarked floor. Here is the post about thoughts and prayers, here the article about how they are not enough. Here is the diatribe about the sickness of white men, here is the collage of broken lives. Interrupted stories, stolen voices. Here, another familiar waltz shudders into motion. You’ve heard it before, haven’t you, the push and pull over whether to uncover the story of the killer. Here, a commentator equates reflecting on his life with excusing his action...