Proclaim by Word and Example

  This sermon was preached for "Peace Sunday," the seventh Sunday of Easter, May 12, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: 1 John 5:9-13,  John 17:6-19, and  Psalm 1. In the hospital chaplaincy office where I worked one summer, there were two beautiful pottery bowls that sat on a small table by the door. One bowl was usually empty but the other right beside it was filled with smooth stones that were the exact right size to fit in the palm of my hand. The bowls and stones were pretty enough that at first glance they might appear to be an odd sort of decoration. But it wasn't a display - the bowls and the stones were an invitation to a particular kind of prayer practice for each of us chaplains. See, one of the hardest parts of serving as a chaplain is that you are most often with people for just one brief, intense moment in their lives - right after a birth or a death, right before a surgery or in the midst of a journey with cancer - and

This sermon was preached for Rogation Sunday, May 5, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: 1 John 5:1-6,  John 15:9-17, and  Psalm 98. This is not the sermon for today, at least not all of it. I hope today’s sermon will be preached to you not by me, but by the St. Mark’s grounds - by all of God’s creation that surrounds this church on either side - both the gardens we’ve cultivated and the natural gardens that have been guided only by God’s hands. We will be going out into the St. Mark’s gardens toward the end of our service to bless them, but also to be blessed by them. If you choose not to join us for whatever reason, then I hope sometime today or this week, you will go out into a yard or park to listen and look for the rest of this sermon.  This is a quintessentially Anglican exercise. Episcopalians are guided in faith by three sources: scripture, tradition, and our personal experiences. Sometimes we talk about them like they are three separate leg