Sermons

    Last week in what turns out to have been our last time to physically worship together for who knows how long, I talked about how often the scripture readings for a particular Sunday, in a schedule set decades ago, seem to talk to our current...

    First this morning, I have to recognize the irony that two out of three of our scripture readings are about living water in the same week that we emptied the baptismal font as a precaution against the coronavirus.     Perhaps that...

Years ago I was interviewing people for a position at the church where I worked. One woman seemed very qualified for the job, and came across as competent, capable, and personable. The interview took an unexpected turn when she asked me a question: “What is  your...

Baptisms are cause for celebration. After almost every baptism there is a special reception at church, often followed by another party at home for family and friends.     That was not the case for Jesus. He was baptized by his cousin John at age 30 in...

Today we come to the end of the season of Epiphany, what is known as the season of light. Epiphany always begins and ends the same way. The first Sunday of  the season is always the time we celebrate Jesus’ baptism. And the last Sunday of the season is always the...

“With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan,...

    A number of events collide on the calendar today.     My guess is that to most of the country today is first and foremost Super Bowl Sunday, a day when even people who are not football fans find themselves in front of a television,...

    It was on a hot, humid, sultry August day that I left Nashville to move to Sewanee to begin seminary. Loyal friends had come over early that morning to help me load all of my worldly possessions into a rented truck.     Now the...

One spring day almost a quarter of a century ago, Peggy and Mark Kennedy and their young son made a pilgrimage to Atlanta to visit Martin Luther King Jr.’s grave. From there they walked down the street where the Civil Rights icon had grown up. to the house where he...

It was the last session of a three-day retreat for Methodist ministers. On the gathering’s opening day, the leader had given an assignment. Each participant was to search through Scripture and find a name or a story that they could claim as their own. On the last day...

    Arise, shine for your light has come! With these words from the prophet Isaiah we begin the season of Epiphany, often known as the season of light.  Epiphany (which actually is tomorrow) begins with the light of the star that led the wise men to the infant...

It is good to be gathered here with you on this beautiful night, the night that we celebrate the birth of a baby who will change the world. Everything about this evening is special – the music that our choirs have practiced for so many hours; the beautiful flowers and...

Every three years on this day, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, our scripture readings take a few moments to remember a crucial character in the birth we are about to celebrate, a character who soon fades into the background and is rarely seen again. I’m talking, of...

They must be the most famous words ever uttered by any woman in history.  I’m talking about the Magnificat, also known as the Song of Mary, which we sang in place of the usual psalm today.  Mary, a poor, unwed teenager, has just heard the startling news from...

I’d like to share with you this morning a true story, told by writer Barbara Kingsolver, that seems to me to be a modern-day parable for Advent, one that could be straight from the mouth of the prophet Isaiah. The story takes place in a cool October in the forested...