Proclaim by Word and Example

  This sermon was preached for Christmas Day, December 25, 2023. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 52:7-10, Luke 2:1-20, and Psalm 96. A couple of Sundays ago a group of us went Christmas caroling to a local retirement community and an assisted living facility. As I was walking into our second performance, a middle-aged woman approached me, guiding an elderly man by the elbow. “Is this where the caroling is happening?” she asked. She and the man who was clearly her father sat right up front and as we started into the first hymn, I saw tears well up in her eyes. She continued to cry, softly, as we sang and her father sang, too, in a soft, slow baritone. I held her in my heart as we sang, although there was no way for me to know why she was crying. Tears are so many things: sadness, fear, but also happiness, relief, profound joy, gratitude, appreciation of beauty. All I could really be sure about was that our music touched her deeply.  Yesterday at the Christmas Eve pa...

This sermon was preached for Christmas Eve, Sunday, December 24, 2023. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 52:7-10, Luke 2:1-20, and  Psalm 96. I’m not sure what it says about me that one of my all-time favorite movies, Children of Men, is rather grim and stark. But what redeems all that for me is that the movie also contains what I consider to be the most poignant depiction of Christmas hope ever put on film - and it’s a depiction I couldn’t stop thinking about this year, in all the grim starkness 2023 has brought our world.  “Children of Men” is set in London but in an alternate future, one defined by a global fertility crisis. The story imagines the hopelessness of a society in which no child has been born for 18 years: constant civil wars, migrant crises, famine, and corruption. In one scene at the heart of the film, a gritty urban battle rages. Refugees huddle in a bombed-out building, hiding from armed soldiers and rebels alike. Suddenly, in the cacophony of...

This sermon was preached for the Third Sunday of Advent, Sunday, December 17, 2023 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11,  1 Thessalonians 5:16-24,  John 1:6-8,19-28, and Canticle 15 (The Magnificat).  My first semester in college my roommate Raffie got me into this blog that was popular at the time called 1000 Awesome Things . Every day the blog will feature a short description of an awesome thing. My favorite example is #624 “the flavor pocket.”  A flavor pocket is when you are eating a bag of chex mix and you bite into that one piece with all the seasoning packed on, or the fat glob of guacamole at the center of your burrito, or the spoonful of ice cream with the giant cookie dough chunk - just that extra, surprising mouthful of flavor. That’s a flavor pocket. And it’s awesome.  Here’s a few more examples from the blog, which is now a book: #623 The sound of snow crunching under your boots,...

This sermon was preached for the second Sunday in Advent, Sunday, December 10, 2023. The readings for this sermon were: Isaiah 40:1-11,  Mark 1:1-8, and  Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13. I’m not sure that my father totally intended to teach me how to ride a bike quite this way but this is what I internalized about how bike gears work as a kid: you put your bike into the highest, hardest gear you can possibly manage and just push through until you can’t go anymore and you are forced to shift down to a lower gear out of sheer exhaustion. Framed like that, moving into a lower gear when you’re straining up a hill was basically a little shameful failure, a mini defeat. It wasn't until my twenties when my father-in-law retaught me how to ride a bike that I learned that no, actually bike gears are simply tools for different situations you’re riding through. You adjust your bicycle’s setting to your body, not the other way around. Use bike gears properly and the rhythm and pace of your pedali...

This sermon was preached for the Feast Day of Christ the King, Sunday, November 26 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow, MA. The readings for this sermon were: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24,  Psalm 100, and  Matthew 25:31-46. My sister got me onto this podcast, Heavyweight, a while ago. In it, Jonathan Goldstein puts two people in conversation with one another about something important and meaningful they haven’t ever had the chance to talk about, the words they never said. Some of the most exciting episodes involve a person who had one brief encounter with a kind or compassionate stranger that completely changed their life. Armed with just a few sparse details, Goldstein the host goes on a wild chase to bring the two back together so that the stranger could learn how impactful their small gesture of kindness had been.  This past week’s podcast starts out that way. It’s the story of a man, Nick, who was accidentally shot by a coworker fooling around with a loaded gun. In chaos...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, November 19 at St. Mark's in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were: Psalm 123,  1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, and  Matthew 25:14-30. I once had a middle schooler in my Sunday school class ask me in all sincerity why we say grace before dinner. Why do we thank God for the food? He wondered. God didn’t do anything. People made this happen. Why should God get all the credit? How is that fair? I heard echoes of this question in the words of the third slave from Jesus’ parable - the who was given just one talent, buried it, and gave it back to his master when he returned. Here’s how he explains himself to his returned master, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ The slave names his fear, but I hear anger, too, in his words, and resentment. You went away. You were g...

This sermon was preached for All Saints' Sunday, October 29, 2023. The readings for this sermon were:  Revelation 7:9-17,  Psalm 34:1-10, 22,  1 John 3:1-3, and  Matthew 5:1-12. So I listened to an episode from my one of my favorite theologians, Dr. Kate Bowler. She was interviewing an expert on teenage mental health on her podcast, Everything Happens. And I’ve been mulling over what they talked about ever since. It may seem quite unrelated to gifts, and saints, and puzzle pieces to start, but bear with me.  In the episode and in her book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers , Dr. Lisa Damour offers a definition of mental health that’s a bit different than mainstream cultural discourse she often hears, but a whole lot closer to what mental health professionals and academics mean when they talk about wellness. Mental health is 1) having feelings that fit the situation, even if they’re not pleasant feelings and 2) managing those feelings effectively, that is coping ...