Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached on Sunday, May 5, 2019 for the last Sunday at Episcopal Church of Our Savior, Oakland, CA. The readings for this sermon were:  Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) ,  Revelation 5:11-14 .  John 21:1-19 , and  Psalm 30 . The first part of our Gospel passage today comes at a moment when the disciples are learning to recognize Jesus’s presence among them in new ways. Jesus no longer walks and talks with them as a teacher and friend. If you remember in the Gospel last week, Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples where they were gathered in fear. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus arrives in the moment of scarcity and stress for the disciples and leads them into plenty and joy. Let’s look again at the ways the different disciples recognize Jesus: - One disciple recognizes Jesus in the surprising abundance filling their nets. - Peter recognizes Jesus when his friend testifies, “It is the Lord!” - The others know him as Jesus in the shared meal he...

This sermon was preached for Good Friday on Friday, April 19 at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Oakland, CA. The readings for this sermon is the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of John ( John 18:1-19:42 ). Last year, a couple of my friends asked me to give a speech at their wedding. As I was preparing my remarks, I asked Alec and Rachel to tell me about when they knew they wanted to marry each other. Rachel wrote to me that while she knew she would marry Alec for a long time, she had been waiting for the moment when she knew she was ready. That moment came just about a year before their wedding, when Alec’s grandmother fell very ill. A couple of days before she died, Alec and Rachel were in the hospital visiting his grandmother. Ella Fitzgerald’s “Cry me a river” was playing and Alec’s grandfather was sitting next to her and holding her hand. That moment was incredibly sad, but it was also beautiful. Suddenly Rachel knew. She wanted that with Alec, all of it—marriage, children,...

This sermon was preached for the Third Sunday of Lent, Sunday, March 24 at Grace Episcopal Church in Medford, MA. The readings for this sermon are:  Exodus 3:1-15 , 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 , Luke 13:1-9 , and Psalm 63:1-8 . I was doing some reflecting with some of my classmates as we prepare to graduate from seminary and I shared that one of the main lessons I keep learning again and again is that everyone I meet is pretty much just doing their best. Most of the time, we’re all flawed human beings just doing our darnedest. One of my classmates thought about that for a second and then said, “I have a story for you.” And she told me about when she served at as a parish administrator in a church in England. There was this woman that came to the church week after week and asked for five bus tokens. Never said why, never asked for anything more. Just five tokens for the bus week in and week out. Until, one week the woman stopped coming. When she appeared some time later, she came in ...

This sermon was preached for a Liturgical Leadership class on Wednesday, February 27 in All Saints' Chapel, Church Divinity School of the Pacific. The readings for the sermon are: Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) , Revelation 5:11-14 , John 21:1-19 , and Psalm 30 . There's a whole bunch of miracles packed into this Gospel scene. There's Jesus appearing after his death, that's a big one. Then there's the miraculous catch of fish after a night of empty nets -- one-hundred and fifty-three of them, which commentaries say represent all of the 153 different species of fish you can possibly find in the Sea of Galilee. There's Jesus' voice traveling hundreds of yards over wind and waves to reach the disciples. But there's another miracle tucked in here, so tiny, so inconsequential, that it's easy to miss. “And though there were so many, the net was not torn.” Throughout the Gospel of John, we can trace this theme of unity: Jesus’ high priestly prayer that the c...

This sermon was preached for the 7th Sunday after Epiphany, Sunday, February 24 at Church of Our Saviour in Oakland, CA. The texts for this sermon were: Genesis 45:3-11, 15 ,  1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 ,  Luke 6:27-38 , and  Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42 . Our passage from Genesis today features a beautiful moment of reconciliation between brothers. But to understand this moment we have to go back. Back to a man named Jacob. Jacob was blessed with many children but he loved one child, Joseph, more than all the rest. Jacob gave Joseph all the best chores, the fancy clothes, and his favor and approval. And Joseph turned around and rubbed it in everyone's faces. He tattled on his brothers to his father and he bragged about how he was destined for greatness and to rule over his family. So Joseph's brothers were angry. Quite reasonably angry. Might you even say that they had every right to be angry? Here is what they did with their anger: they plotted to kill Joseph. They ...

This sermon was preached at All Saints' Chapel, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, CA on Wednesday, November 14. The texts for this sermon are: Titus 3:1-7 , Psalm 91:9-16 , and   Luke 17:11-19 . A couple of weeks ago, I attended my Diocesan Convention back in Massachusetts. A group of high school students who make up the Diocesan Youth Council gave a heartfelt presentation about the twenty years of their organization and what it has meant for youth voices to be heard and taken seriously on the Convention floor. At the end of the presentation, three young adults in their twenties and thirties—Diocesan Youth Council graduates—got up. They presented results from a survey of their peers, other DYC alumni. Even though the young adults who responded to the survey overwhelming report that DYC had played a significant role in developing their sense of identity, their leadership qualities, made them who they were today--just a minority of these highly involved youth came ba...

This sermon was preached for the (transferred) Feast Day of Hiram Hisanori Kano on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at All Saints' Chapel, Church Divinity School of the Pacific. The readings for this sermon are: Isaiah 49:8–13, Psalm 42, Ephesians 2:19–22, and Luke 14:1, 7-14. Here is the table, we have taken our seats. Of course the reality is, there isn’t just one table, is there? Aren’t there many throughout our lives, literal and figurative? Isn’t life full of getting up and sitting down, getting invited to this table and excluded from that one? As much as we students like our assigned seats, and Episcopalians our pews, our positions at these multiple tables are always shifting, always in relation to others, always in context. In the first part of this Gospel passage, Jesus is not talking about the heavenly banquet table, but all of those many tables his fellow diners are invited to throughout their lives. And here’s the thing--Jesus does not condemn them for striving for a b...