Proclaim by Word and Example

  This sermon was preached for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 11 for a joint online service for St. Andrew's, Wellesley and St. Michael's, Holliston. The texts for this sermon were:  Acts 4:32-35 ,  1 John 1:1-2:2 ,  John 20:19-31 , and  Psalm 133 . Over the course of Lent, Episcopalians voted March Madness bracket-style on the saint of the year in the annual “Lenten Madness” contest. This year, Absalom Jones, the first African-American Episcopal priest, won the Golden Halo – a good and righteous choice, for sure. But if I had to pick a saint for this moment we are in right now, I think I’d go with St. Thomas, the star of our Gospel story today. Thomas is left out of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to the disciples in the locked room that first Sunday. When the disciples come to him with what they saw and heard, Thomas responds with his own demand. He tells them, here’s what I need to believe that you say. Your story isn’t enough for me. I need to be in the...

From time to time in my faith journey, when my spiritual well has run dry, I find myself reaching back for resources that have nourished me in the past. This week, I turned back to a book that was given to me that very first Lent as an Episcopalian, five years ago. I want to offer it to you all now because this book turned everything I thought I knew about Lent on its head. Its central message also accords well with the Jesus we met here in the Gospel of John, who’s just been going on about the importance of the Spirit to Nicodemus. Also, since it’s Laetare Sunday – the day we take a bit of a break in Lent to rejoice in God’s mercy and grace – it’s a great Sunday to rethink Lent and let in some grace as well. The book called, very appropriately, "A Season for the Spirit," and it’s written by a local Anglican monk, Brother Martin Smith.  First you should understand that, growing up, Lent was a bit like New Year’s Resolution 2.0 in my family. We’d each take a look at our lives ...

This sermon was preached for the First Sunday in Lent, February 21, 2021 for an online joint service of St. Andrew's and St. Michael's. The texts for this sermon are:  Genesis 9:8-17 ,  1 Peter 3:18-22 ,  Mark 1:9-15 , and  Psalm 25:1-9 . We start this Lent with the story of Noah. Out of all the Old Testament stories, this is probably one you’re most familiar with – maybe the one you best remember from Sunday School. There are many things this ancient tale can be to us – children’s story with lots of animals and pretty colors, a reminder of the hope at the end of every disaster. I want to suggest that it can also be a parable for Lent, a warning for the best and worst ways we can approach our own spiritual growth in these next forty days.  On the seventh day of creation, God rested in the knowledge that it was good, that it was very good. But something happened to humankind in the intervening generations of old. And God saw with horror that the wickedness of hum...

  This sermon was preached on Sunday, January 31 for a joint online service with St. Andrew's and St. Michael's. The text for this sermon was: Mark 1:21-28. A week or so ago, I was honored to baptize a dear friend’s newborn son. It was just the four of us—baby Jack, his parents, and me—around the small font in the chilly garden, but it was no less real or special. Though we kept the service brief, I took the time to go through the movements of the liturgy with my friends before we began. In every preparation session with parents, there’s that awkward moment when we get to the renunciations – one of the two sets of three questions we ask the parents and godparents to answer on behalf of their child. The questions, you may remember go like this:  “Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?”  “Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”  “Do you renounce all sinful desires t...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, January 20, 2021 for a joint St. Andrew's and St. Michael's online service. The texts for this sermon were:  Genesis 1:1-5 ,  Acts 19:1-7 ,  Mark 1:4-11 , and  Psalm 29 .  We are a covenantal people. Since the publication of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the Episcopal Church has made it our practice to regularly return to the fundamental oath of our faith: the Baptismal Covenant. We say it whenever we participate in a baptism or confirmation. We rise to recite it year after year on the most special of Sundays: Easter, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, and today, the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord.  As Episcopalians, the baptismal covenant constitutes the heart of what we believe it means to be Christian. We begin at this statement of faith, at these five questions. This is where the Gospel of Mark begins, too. Not with the baby in the manager, but with Jesus’ baptism. The voice crying out in the wilderness is the voice cal...

  This sermon was preached for Pageant Sunday, December 20, 2021 for a joint online service for St. Andrew's and St. Michael's. The texts for this sermon were pageant scriptures, including Luke 2:1-20 .  Thank you to each and every child and teen who was part of this year’s pageant production, and for the parents behind the scenes. Your re-telling of this sacred story is a powerful witness to the ways this narrative will continue to be retold in every language and medium, in circumstances joyful and sorrowful, from generation to generation.  Thank you.  Perhaps because this year’s pageant was shorter than I’m used to, or perhaps because this has been a year marked by absences of all kinds, but this year I noticed the parts of the story that we often leave out of our various pageants.  Mary, for instance, fast forwards from learning about her miraculous conception right to the night of the birth of her child. We get to skip over her morning sickness, the slow bal...

This sermon was preached for a joint St. Andrew's - St. Michael's online service for Sunday, October 18. The texts for this sermon were:  Exodus 33:12-23 ;  Psalm 99 ;  1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 ; and  Matthew 22:15-22 . When we were kids in class, we loved to play what I’m sure is an ancient and universal game much beloved by students everywhere. The entirety of the game consisted of trying to get our teacher to ramble off-topic for as long as possible. It didn’t matter about what as long as it wasn’t the lesson on hand. Over the course of the year we'd learn each teacher's particular weakness. Some teachers could be tempted to talk about something obscure they loved, while other teachers would get riled up and go on and on about something that infuriated them. The really clever teachers still managed to teach us something even as they spiraled down the rabbit hole – but that wasn’t the point for us. The point was wresting some semblance of control over what was happen...