Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached for the first Sunday in Lent at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow. The text for this sermon is Matthew 4:1-11. I’ve discovered recently that my life is plagued with almost constant background noise - the low hum of heating systems, the buzz of baby monitors, the thrum of the stovetop fan. It’s only once the artificial noises have stilled that I realize how grating they are to me. There’s an immediate sense of relief in the temporary silence. I find I’m continually surprised by that relief, as if I’m constantly forgetting how loud my life is until I catch glimpses of the gift of quiet here and there. Step foot in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, or really any large stone church in any city, let the large doors close behind you, and you’ll notice it - the sudden absence of noise. The background barrage of traffic, the hustle and bustle of the city are muffled by the huge stone walls of the nave of the church. The cath...

  This sermon was preached for Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2023 for St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 103:8-14, and Matthew 6:1-6,16-21. I saw a tweet the other day that I can’t stop thinking about. It was from a mother of a really little one and I wish I could give more credit than that but I’ve had a heck of a time finding it again. This mother said that every time she gets bored or frustrated with caring for her baby she pretends that she is a time-traveler who has gone back in time to spend time with her baby. She imagines that she has traveled from all the way in the distant future just for another afternoon with her child as a small infant. I love that. And I’ve been totally been stealing it. That second when I don’t think I could do any more midnight soothing or sing that inane song once more time, I think what if I’ve traveled all the way back in time just to be with him in this moment, j...

  This sermon was written for Sunday, February 19, the last Sunday in Epiphany, for St. Mark's Episcopal Church. A modified version was preached. The texts for this Sunday were:  Exodus 24:12-18,  2 Peter 1:16-21,  Matthew 17:1-9, and  Psalm 2. My mother has a favorite saying these days that she pulls out each time my sister and I regale her with a story of an epically sleepless night or another afternoon spent nursing a sick child while sick ourselves. “The days are long,” she reminds us, “but the years are short.” The days are long, but the years are short. There is much wisdom in this saying I think, and not just for early parenthood. It points to the very human experience of the mysterious flexibility of time: how it stretches and compresses strangely - flying by one sec and dragging on the next. The quite fascinating thing is that modern scientific theory actually supports what we know to be true from living our lives. A key tenet of Einstein’s Theory of R...

 If you want to raise your children with wholesome values through acoustic children’s music, Tom Chapin’s your guy. At least he was in the 90s when I was growing up. This past week I was dancing in the kitchen with my toddler to one his tunes. It goes like this (and no, I’m not going to sing it):  They call my town a melting pot, like a stew or a casserole. But we are not a melting pot, my town is a salad bowl… We’re so imported and so assorted, There’s no way of melting us down. But different scenes for different greens, Our differences strengthen our town. A salad of course gets tossed, but none of the tastes get lost. My town is a salad bowl… Tom's child-friendly message of course is that being in community does not mean losing what's essential to your identity. It doesn't mean melting yourself down so that everyone fades into a homogeneous sludge. Good community means collaboration that allows you to still be yourself.  Jesus is not above using food metaphors to help ...