Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached on Sunday, January 28 for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany at St. Mark's Episcopal Church. The texts for this sermon were: Deuteronomy 18:15-20,  Mark 1:21-28 and  Psalm 111. There’s nothing quite like a four hour international flight with a 1.5 year old and a 2.5 year old to make you question your perception of time. It’s moments like that when I say to my children what I remember my parents saying to me, “The faster you fall asleep, the faster we will get there.” In some ways, that’s actually true: a human being’s perception of time is somewhat within our control - or at least the control of our brains. And there’s nothing like a wintertime tropical vacation in a beautiful place with people I adore to inspire me to practice all my best strategies for being in the moment and slowing time down, too.  So many of our faith practices include some way of strengthening our relationship with time. How we relate to our past, present, and future is, ...

This sermon was preached for Annual Meeting Sunday, January 21, 2024 at St. Mark's Church. The texts for this sermon were: Jonah 3:1-5, 10,  Mark 1:14-20, and  Psalm 62:6-14. This sermon has two parts; well, three: what I'll say right now, what you will do with the sermon next, and what we will both share at Annual Meeting after church - if you're able to stay.  So that's why I'll pray this way this morning: May the words of our mouths and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen  Jesus beckons to Simon, Andrew, James, and John with these words: the kingdom has come near. Their response to his words is to come near. They are drawn to him. And he tells them that their new life will be defined by drawing others in: “I will make you fishers of people.” The kingdom of God is all about coming near. Coming near to God and coming near to God’s people. Jonah’s story, on the other hand, is all about going awa...

  This sermon was preached on Sunday, January 14, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow for the second Sunday after Epiphany and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. The texts for this sermon were: 1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20),  John 1:43-51, and  Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17.  If you haven’t heard of StoryCorps before, it’s an American oral history project that collects audio recordings of conversations between friends and relatives. Their archives are filled with beautiful stories that have captured and preserved what it is to be a person in America. One of my favorites is a story told by Ramón Sanchez . Ramón grew up in a small farming town in the 1950s. His teachers Americanized his name and the names of the other Mexican-American classmates. So Ramón became Raymond and María became Mary, and Juanita became Jane. That is until second grade, when a new kid showed up: Facundo Gonzalez. The teachers held an emergency administrative meeting because they couldn’t figure...

  This sermon was preached in modified form for an online service for the Feast of the Epiphany, Sunday, January 7, 2023 at St. Mark's. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 60:1-6,  Matthew 2:1-12, and  Psalm 72:1-7,10-14. My late grandfather delighted in asking everyone who came to visit him the same question: “So which route did you take?”  As coats were put away and boots stamped out, the guest would recount to him whatever details of their journey felt relevant or important to share - the sources and maps they used, the delays they encountered, how this street or that neighborhood has changed so much, so fast. Sometimes - and I think this was my grandfather’s favorite - the question would spark some genial, light-hearted debate around this bridge or that turn or when rush hour really is that would carry the guests all the way into a comfortable chair and a welcoming drink.  In the era of GPS apps, of course, this question seems wildly outdated now. My...

  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,...