Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached for Sunday, July 31 at St. Mark's in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were:  Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24 ,  Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 , and  Luke 12:32-40 . My first year of seminary, my classmates and I decided we wanted to celebrate Maundy Thursday in our own creative way. We settled on cooking a huge meal - a giant vat of chili - and bringing it out into the streets of our city to feed unhoused and street folks we encountered. What better way to honor the Last Supper than sharing our Agape Feast with our neighbors? And we really did go out into the spring nightair with a literal bucket filled with chili and a ladle and some plastic clamshells donated from a local shop. We made our way down the hill to People’s Park in downtown Berkeley moving from group to group of gathered folks who were just settling down for the night. By the time we made it around to the other side of the park however, we were amazed to discover that some of our chili had ...

  This sermon was preached for Sunday, July 24, 2022 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Luke 11:1-13, Psalm 85, and Colossians 2:6-15. Early on, my husband and I were advised by wiser and more experienced parents that the key to a successful bedtime is a predictable routine. So for months now, right around 7pm, we read my son a storybook, give him some warm milk, and then we pray. Every night we pray the Our Father and then sing a Jewish prayer in Hebrew, the Shema, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Most nights, it’s like magic. No matter how hyped up he is before bed, by the time we finish the last sacred song, his eyes are closed, his head is nodding, and his little body is all curled up and ready for sleep. Routine is key. The persistence of our prayers has made all the difference. When I lived in Jordan, a Muslim-majority nation, the entire day was broken up by prayer. Five times a day, from sunup to sundown, t...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, July 17, 2022 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were:  Psalm 52,  Colossians 1:15-28,   and  Luke 10:38-42      There’s a running joke in my family about Great-Aunt Evie, God rest her soul. Apparently Aunt Evie loved hosting dinners and teatimes for family and friends, but was notorious for never sitting down long enough at the table for the meal to start. She’d be forever popping up to grab utensils or more dishes for her guests, who’d have to laugh and urge her to sit and just be. So whenever my mother would pop up from the table to retrieve something or check on something in the kitchen, especially if it was delaying the start of grace, one of us would laugh and call her Aunt Evie and she’d laugh too and sit back down. What we were asking my mother was to give us the most important thing - more important than the next dish or a clean fork - her attention and her presence. We wanted he...

This sermon was preached on Sunday, July 10, 2022 for the baptism of Olivia Marie. The texts for this sermon were:  Psalm 82 ,  Colossians 1:1-14 , and  Luke 10:25-37 . As you may know in the Episcopal Church, the readings for each Sunday are predetermined by our lectionary. That said, today's Gospel Passage is pretty perfect for a baptism celebration. You can't get a better encapsulation of the essence of the faith we are inviting little Olivia into today than this: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." Or as our Presiding Bishop puts it, "Love God, love your neighbor, and while you're at it, love yourself.” It's such a great summary, in fact, that it can be easy to overlook that the lawyer was actually trying to test and challenge Jesus. Jesus's response to the lawyer's second question is likewise intended to test and chal...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, July 3 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were:  Psalm 30 ,  Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16 , and  Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 . Recently the podcast and NPR show, “On Being” with Krista Tippett replayed an older interview with Jewish mystic and physician Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen. In it, Dr. Remen draws an intriguing distinction between curing and healing. One of the problems of the medical profession, according to Dr. Remen, is that medical students are taught to be focused on curing; that is fixing whatever ails the person before you. Curing is highly specialized work involving research and diagnoses, medication and treatments - scientific skills. Through that framework, death is always the failure of medicine. Healing, on the other hand, is the work of becoming whole, restoring well-being and peace. To heal, one draws on the spiritual skills of compassion, service, a reverence for life, courage and love. Heal...