Moving to Substack

Thank you for visiting Rev. Mia's sermon blog. I am moving to posting my sermons over on Substack, starting from Sunday, March 9, 2025. You can find them at https://proclaimia.substack.com/.

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Tuesday, December 24, 2024 - Thank you, teacher

This sermon was preached for the Feast of the Nativity, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024. The texts for this sermon were the Christmas Lessons and Carols. I sent two recordings of my daughter singing herself to sleep to her godmothers a couple weeks ago. If you listen closely to the first, you can hear that she’s singing her very own two year old version of the Jewish sabbath blessing for the bread and in the second, O Gracious Light, the Episcopal hymn we’ve been singing as we light our Advent wreath each night. The godmothers were delighted. “Here’s the thing that I know for sure,” one said in response. “...There are things we can only learn about God from children. There are things we can only learn about God from a little tiny voice singing blessings to fall asleep.” The Christmas pageant we did here earlier today was another one of those times that drives home for me, that there are things we can only learn about God from children. Things that children just know about ...

Sunday, February 9, 2025 - This is happening

This sermon was preached for the online virtual worship service of St. Andrew's for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 9, 2025. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 6:1-8, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11, and Psalm 138. In labor with my first child, my son, there came that moment when the midwife looked me in the eyes and said, “This next push will do it.” All of a sudden, the entire weight of the enormity of what I was doing - bringing a new human being into the world - came crashing down on me. I just kept saying, I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I can’t do this. But I didn’t mean the pushing part, I meant all of it. I wasn’t ready to be someone’s mother. How could I ever have believed I could be someone’s mother. God bless my twin sister, who stepped in at that point, looked me in the eyes and said in her best matter-of-fact emergency room nurse voice, “Mia, this is happening.” She might have said something encouraging, too, like you’...

Sunday, February 2, 2025 - Beautiful Things

This sermon was preached for the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord (Candlemas), Sunday, February 2, 2025 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were: Malachi 3:1-4, Hebrews 2:14-18, Luke 2:22-40, and Psalm 84. Sometimes a song will come to me as a background refrain to my days. This week, I found myself singing a particular song to my two-year-old at bedtime; a praise and worship song I learned a decade ago in the Episcopal Service Corps. It’s called Beautiful Things by Michael Gungor. The lyrics are simple enough for my toddler to begin picking up on the words. But what I really love about this song is that it begins with questions. Just as with so many psalms, these questions meet us in our very human wondering and doubt, in our grief and despair. The songwriter, Michael Gungor, wrote Beautiful Things with his wife, Lisa, in 2011, when he was 30 years old. “All this pain,” the song begins. Looking around at the poverty, violence and desperat...

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