Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 23, 2022 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. The texts for this sermon are:  Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 ,  1 Corinthians 12:12-31a ,  Luke 4:14-21 , and  Psalm 19 . I have a confession to make. I’m on TikTok now. Yes, it’s yet another social media platform. Yes, it’s majorly addictive. And I would say that it’s part of my job to be where the new generation of young people are. I could claim it's important for a youth minister to understand the social media worlds young people are immersed in...except that it was totally my sixty-year-old retired father who convinced me to finally install the app.  You don’t have to spend a long time on TikTok, or Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, or Reddit or any of the other internet community spaces or social media platforms to realize that people are profoundly confused about what Christianity is. People aren't sure what the church stands for or what Jesus’...

  This sermon was preached for the Feast of the Epiphany, Sunday, January 9, 2022 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Wellesley. The texts for this Sunday were:  Isaiah 60:1-6 ,  Ephesians 3:1-12 ,  Matthew 2:1-12  and  Psalm 72:1-7,10-14 .  Take a moment to picture the magi. What comes to mind for you? Perhaps it is the feel of the smooth, carved wood of your childhood nativity set. Or maybe you're remembering children in play crowns and fabric turbans, trooping up a church aisle. Or majestic silhouettes on Christmas cards.  Either way, my guess is that three figures come to mind. Though Matthew’s account doesn’t say how many magi there were exactly, the Christian tradition has coalesced around three kings simply because there were three gifts. Over the centuries, we’ve given the three names and stories, made them heroes for us to celebrate. In most contemporary depictions, the three journeying kings stride forth alone, perhaps with a couple of cam...