Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached on Sunday, March 29 for Palm Sunday at Grace Episcopal Church. The Gospel for this sermon is:  Mark 14:1-15:47 . “She has done what she could…whenever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” Every Sunday we hear Jesus’s request that we remember his new covenant whenever we break bread and share wine together. In this Gospel, in Mark’s passion, Jesus asks us to remember something else—his anointing by the woman from Bethany. Her name has been lost to history, and, if we let her, she’ll disappear back into this long Gospel passage today as well. I might have passed by the importance her bold gesture, too, had I not encountered her just the other day at the high school, when some of our Peace team members and local clergy joined in a teen-led discussion helping friends in need. Our group started out by listing the problems our friends were facing—everything from the girlfriend who’s not e...

This sermon was preached on March 8, 2015 at Grace Episcopal Church. The texts for this sermon were:  Exodus 20:1-17 ,  1 Corinthians 1:18-25 ,  John 2:13-22 , and  Psalm 19 . On Thursday morning, the lights in the office started flickering strangely. Carol, our church administrator, and I had just enough time to exchange a look before the fire alarms began blaring. Thanks to twelve years of public schooling, my reaction to fire alarms is very well ingrained. I mentally ticked off the rules in my head: no time for coats and bags, leave everything behind, walk calmly to the nearest exit, don’t reenter the building. When I was little and frightened of the scary noises, the fire drill instructions were like a promise. Follow the rules and everything will be fine. Today’s Exodus passage presents perhaps the most iconic rules of Western civilization. The Ten Commandments. A foundation of stone for the Israelites stand on in the desperate confusion of the desert wildern...

This sermon was preached on Sunday, February 22, 2015. The texts for this sermon were:  Genesis 9:8-17 ,  1 Peter 3:18-22 ,  Mark 1:9-15 , and  Psalm 25:1-9 . We’re talking a lot in church about wilderness this Lent. If you were with us on Ash Wednesday, you may have picked up a little Lent kit bag of your own piece of wilderness to take home with you. As I was setting up that devotional space in my own home, carving a nice, neat spiral in the sand, I realized I carry a lot of ideas about what wilderness is already even before I open the Bible. Sometimes I like to think about wilderness as a beautiful, pristine place, unspoiled by modernity or urban life. I picture an idyllic, sun-lit meadow, filled with chirping birds and no evidence that any other human being has ever existed—not even a footprint! I carry that image of wilderness somewhere within me each time I venture into nature. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out in nature filled with peaceful sereni...

This sermon was preached on Sunday, February 15, 2015 for the Feast of the Transfiguration at Grace Episcopal Church in Medford, MA. The texts for this sermon were:  Exodus 34:29-35 ,  2 Peter 1:13-21 , and  Luke 9:28-36 . I don’t know about you but I’ve gotten pretty tired of things getting transfigured by dazzling whiteness. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my darndest to stubbornly hang on to my childhood wonder and joy at the sight of each new snow-covered world storm after storm. But the enormous effort that takes has somehow robbed me of my ability to connect to Christ’s transfiguration with emotions of awe and astonishment. Then I came across some writing by an Episcopal theologian named Martin Smith that made me question if that was the only way to access this story. Martin Smith wrote about his experiences as a spiritual director—a kind of life coach who helps people grapple with their spiritual practices and beliefs. Part of his job was to ask people the right que...

This sermon was preached on Sunday, January 4, 2015. The texts for this sermon are:  Isaiah 60:1-6 ,  Ephesians 3:1-12 ,  Matthew 2:1-12 , and  Psalm 72:1-7,10-14 . Today is the Sunday we celebrate the feast of Epiphany. I didn’t grow up celebrating Epiphany so I’ll have to be honest here—I had to look up what it means. I’ve always understood epiphany as a brilliant flash of insight, a scientist in a white coat shouting, “Eureka!”. When we talk about Epiphany today, though, we’re referring to the moment God first revealed himself in human form to the world. But that feeling of that first meaning of epiphany—the glorious moment when the world clicks into place—still taints my understanding of the second, original meaning we celebrate today. With my first direct experience with physical manifestations of God, for instance, I was expecting a bit more of the first kind of epiphany moment. I was raised partially Catholic in my early childhood, and when it came time for m...

This sermon was preached on Sunday, November 30, 2014 at Grace Episcopal Church in Medford, MA. The texts for this sermon were:  Isaiah 64:1-9 ,  1 Corinthians 1:3-9 ,  Mark 13:24-37 , and  Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 . Today is the first Sunday in Advent. It’s the night when we light the first candle on our advent wreath and most importantly in my house, the day we can finally start singing Christmas carols. So why read a passage about destruction and the end of the world today? Why read the bit about Jesus explaining that the apocalypse will feature the sun darkening, the moon going out, and the stars falling from the sky? So it turns out that Advent is not about extending the Christmas shopping season after all. Advent is a thoughtful season of spiritual preparation. We read this passage on the first day of Advent because it reminds us that we are waiting and preparing for two things: the coming of the Christ child on Christmas and the second coming of Christ. In the p...

This sermon was preached on October 5, 2014 at Grace Episcopal Church in Medford MA. The texts for this sermon were:  Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 ,  Psalm 19 ,  Philippians 3:4b-14 , and  Matthew 21:33-46 . In the Gospel lesson for today, Jesus asks the elders a pretty simple question. In fact, he makes it even easier by giving them two answers to choose from. Is John the Baptist a real prophet or is he just a wacko spouting off his own opinion? Does his authority come from Heaven or from human origin? The right answer is already in there—it’s one of the two. So why is the question so hard that the elders refuse to answer? I like that we get a chance to get inside the Pharisees’ heads in this passage. We get to hear their debate. And it’s not actually about what the right answer is. They’re instead fighting over which answer has worse consequences for them. If we say, “from heaven,” one of them points out, he will say to us, “why then did you not believe him?” But i...