Proclaim by Word and Example

  This sermon was preached for the second Sunday of Easter, April 16, 2023 for St. Mark's in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon was John 20:19-31. Have you ever wondered why we don’t usually clap for musical performances in church? It’s not because we don’t appreciate our musicians (because we really, really do) or that we aren’t impressed by them (because we really, really are)! We don’t clap for music in church because they aren’t performances, but rather a form of prayer and praise. The music is not for us, it’s for God. Normally, applause is how we show gratitude, but in church the music itself is the expression of gratitude. We, sitting in the pews, are not an audience either, but participants in every aspect of worship. We are drawn up into the music and pray it, too, just by listening.  Reading the ending of today’s Gospel reminded me of another reason we aren’t supposed to clap after musical pieces in church. It’s the same reason the Gospel accounts don’t end w...

  This sermon was preached for Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023 for St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were: Jeremiah 31:1-6, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24, and John 20:1-18.  Alleluia! Christ is Risen!  Love wins! Alleluia! The love that has triumphed this Easter day is about God’s love for all of us. And it is about God’s love for you, in particular. Thus says the Lord; I have loved you with an everlasting love.  Every Easter Sunday growing up, my sisters and I would wake up in my grandmother’s house to chocolate bunnies placed lovingly at the end of our beds. My sisters’ bunnies were chocolatey brown but mine, mine was a delicious, creamy white. White, because each year without fail my mother remembered that I was one of those strange people who actually prefers white chocolate. One Easter morning, one of those first early years I started to get really into my faith, it was a white chocolate cross instead.  It may ...

  This sermon was preached for the Great Vigil of Easter, Saturday, April 8, 2023 at St. Mark's in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were: Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation],  Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 [The Flood],  Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea],  Ezekiel 36:24-28 [A new heart and a new spirit], Romans 6:3-11, and  Matthew 28:1-10.  When I was young and got upset or mopey about one thing or another, my mother would often say to me, it will all be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.  I have come to believe that these were not just simple words of comfort, but are actually a profound theological statement. This moment we are in right now, whatever moment that is for you in your life, it is only a small part of a larger story. The story of your life, yes, but even bigger than that, the whole, huge entire story of creation. Tonight is the night we zoom out to the lar...

  This sermon was preached for Good Friday, April 7, 2023 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. The texts for this sermon were: John 18:1-19:42 and  Psalm 22. Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Berkeley, California The rector of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Berkeley, California told me once that there is an unusual noise ordinance in the city of Berkeley restricting the use of church bells. Not long ago, the parish had elected to ring their bells each time the State of California put someone to death. But the bell ringing was so frequent and so annoying that the church’s neighbors banded together to do something about it once and for all. They worked together to silence the bells.  For Good Shepherd Parish, the ringing of the bells was their witness to the sorrowful truth that Good Friday is happening all around us, still. Terrible deaths, cruel deaths, state-sanctioned deaths, homicides, casualties of war, overdoses and suicide a...

This sermon was preached for Maundy Thursday, April 6, 2023 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church. The readings for this sermon were:  Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14 , 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 , John 13:1-17, 31b-35 , and Psalm 116:1, 10-17 . In the last few months, there’s been a great leap forward in a technology called artificial intelligence, also known as AI. One of the ways AI can be used is to generate images that look just like real photographs at first glance. They aren’t actually photographs of anything in reality, though. They’re just patterns of pixels put together by computers who have learned from a vast amount of real photographs what certain objects or scenarios are supposed to look like.  It’s actually quite easy to be fooled into thinking AI images are real so people have coming up with tell-tale signs for whether an image is real or AI. One way to judge whether a photo might be computer-generated is to look for any hands. At this stage of AI development, computers are ...