Proclaim by Word and Example

  This sermon was preached for the second Sunday in Lent, February 25, 2024. Texts for this sermon were: Romans 4:13-25,  Mark 8:31-38, and  Psalm 22:22-30.  Someone recently asked me about ashes on Ash Wednesday - what it was all about and why we were running around smearing dirt on people’s faces all day. When I explained that the ashes were a reminder of our mortality, the preciousness of life, and our equality before God, she made a profound observation that stuck with me - probably because it resonated with so many conversations I’ve had with folks over the years. “I’m used to thinking about church as all about feeling guilty,” she said. “But church isn’t about that, is it? It’s about feeling connected to God.”  Lent is the perfect time to talk about guilt and church. And frankly, the predominantly Catholic Western Massachusetts is the perfect place to talk about it, too - so many active, lapsed, and former Catholics I’ve met associate their religious ...

This is the Lenten devotional that changed my life - the one I read when I was first becoming an Episcopalian. It’s called A Season for the Spirit and the author is former Society of St. John the Evangelist brother Martin L. Smith. In Chapter two, Martin remembers sitting alone sobbing in an Oxford movie theater.  As the scene of Jesus’ baptism played across the screen, Martin realized for the first time what the typical depiction of Jesus’ baptism had obfuscated. In all the stained glass he’d ever seen, images of the baptism featured just the two holy cousins standing in beautiful, clear water in a sort of private ceremony. But in the film, Martin finally saw Jesus’ baptism portrayed the way it is told in each of the Gospels: happening right in the midst of great throngs of folks wading into a muddy river, with hundreds more crammed waiting on its banks. A couple of verses before our reading, the Gospel of Mark reports, “The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem...

  This sermon was preached for Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were:  Isaiah 58:1-12 , Psalm  103:8-14 , and  Matthew 6:1-6,16-21 . Today is the day we stare our own mortality in the face. Lent is a disruption in our daily lives, an upending of our usual rhythms so that we might reexamine how we’re living out our faith. It’s why I love that we purposefully rearrange the sanctuary for this season, sometimes in intentionally uncomfortable ways. Most deliciously, the interruption of Lent begins in the rudest of ways - by forcing us to confront the reality of our own deaths.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what death reveals, the truths it often uncovers. I was recently idly browsing a list of public figures who were revered throughout their lives - that is, until after their deaths, when the reality of how they really spent their time or wealth or power was made widely known. O...

This sermon was preached for the funeral of Wendy B. on Friday, February 2, 2024. The texts for this sermon were: Psalm 116, 2 Corinthians 4:7-11, 16, and John 13:31-36.  When Bryan and Brett told me about Wendy on Sunday, the word that kept coming up was strength: the strength of her love and the strength of her character. Wendy was so determined and so strong. Even when her body was failing her, Wendy’s inner nature shone through. She gave you all one last happy Christmas, full of fresh baked cookies and carols and a pageant. As St. Paul writes, we are afflicted, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair. Wendy chose strength, and she chose love.  My son has a beautiful book called, “Will it be okay?” by Crescent Dragonwagon, illustrated by Jessica Love. It’s a simple conversation between a mother and a daughter who asks her again and again, “Will it be okay?” with various “but what if…” When I listened to Bryan and Brett speak of how deeply and fully W...

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...