Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached for Annual Meeting Sunday, January 26, 2025 and references the January 21, 2025 sermon by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Diocese of Washington. The texts for this sermon were: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10,  1 Corinthians 12:12-31a,  Luke 4:14-21, and  Psalm 19. Did you know that churches can be reviewed online, out of five stars and everything? Look up any church on Google maps and you can see how people - visitors and life-long members - rate the church from one to five stars and why. Facebook also has the ability for folks to review church pages. I find these reviews hilarious, but also somewhat unsettling. Church, after all, is not a product to be consumed or even a performance to be observed. Worship and liturgy is co-created, by everyone who shows up. You change a worship service the moment you step into it. You change a church with your presence. This is perhaps most obvious in small churches. Especially on Sundays like ...

  This sermon was preached for the third Sunday after Epiphany on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, Sunday, January 19, 2025. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 62:1-5,  1 Corinthians 12:1-11,  John 2:1-11, and  Psalm 36:5-10.  A few years ago a friend and colleague of mine, Mother Emily García, wrote a Godly Play story about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the children of her then parish. She had noticed that her very well-educated students could analyze the political motivations of many important historical figures but weren’t being taught about their religious motivations or theology. Sure enough, she writes about telling this story to a group of students at her church, ages 3 to 8. As she laid out the first image of the story, a photo of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one student said, “Well, we all know him, but what does Martin Luther King have to do with church?” The story Mother García wrote goes on to answer that st...

This sermon was preached for the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, Sunday, January 12, 2025 for the baptism of Lillian Bee. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 43:1-7,  Acts 8:14-17,  Luke 3:15-17, 21-22, and  Psalm 29. Have you ever held yourself under water, completely submerged? I used to do it all the time as a kid in the pool. Go ahead and close your eyes right now. Remember or imagine how it feels to be totally immersed, your entire body surrounded by clear, clean water, floating freely. I remember imagining that was what it must have felt like in the womb as a little baby. Suspended, enveloped, surrounded by nothing but my mother’s love.  Baptism has its roots in the Jewish practice of mikvah, the ritual immersion that restores someone to a state of ritual purity. When a Jewish person does a mikvah, they completely submerge themselves in living water and say special prayers. Jeanne Suk Gersen, writing about her first mikvah as a convert to Judaism in t...

This sermon was preached for Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord, Sunday, January 5, 2025 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 60:1-6,  Ephesians 3:1-12,  Matthew 2:1-12, and  Psalm 72:1-7,10-14. Believe it or not, a huge part of priest training is on nonviolent communication and conflict resolution, particularly re-learning how to apologize effectively. Mostly we focused on intent vs. impact. Basically, what’s most important is not your intention behind what you said and did, what’s most important is the impact it had on other people. In particular, the job of repairing and reconciliation is all about really hearing what others experienced, acknowledging the impact of your words and actions, and then doing your best to fix it. It’s really not about explaining what you meant to do or all the things you hoped would happen. I suspect we’ve all been on the receiving end of those apologies: I’m sorry I didn’t mean…I’m sorry you feel that way…it was...