"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord."

Sermons

Saved for Life

Sunday morning has a language all its own, full of words that we seldom, if ever, use other times of the week. Words like repentance, righteousness, grace, incarnation. Words that I suspect we  would be hard pressed to easily define. Sometimes the strange...

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For David Abner

Today's service is a little bit different from what we would normally do on the Second Sunday in Lent. As you know, this week our parishioner David Abner died after a stay in hospice. David's children preferred not to have a formal funeral for their father, but will...

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Divine Disarmament

The story of the rainbow is a curious reading for the first Sunday in Lent. We are at the beginning of the most somber season of the church year, a time set aside for reflection and repentance, for fasting and self-denial. We began the service today with the Great...

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A Lenten Prayer

Today is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany, those weeks between Christmas and the beginning of Lent.   Epiphany ends every year with the reading we heard today, the story of the Transfiguration – the ultimate mountaintop experience where Jesus meets...

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Have You Not Known?

Today's reading from the prophet Isaiah finds the people of Israel in deep despair, wondering if they've been abandoned by God. The land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the land that God led them to after freeing them from slavery in Egypt; the land...

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A Loose-Leafed Faith

When I was in college someone gave me a button that I probably still have in a drawer somewhere. “Question Authority” it boldly proclaims. “Question authority” was a philosophy that suited a journalism student well. In fact, I spent my college years, and many years...

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Christmas in the Ruins

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...

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IYKYK

Mary knew. Those are the words on a sign of a church I pass coming here every day. I imagine that some might wonder what these two words actually mean.  If I texted that question to one of my younger friends, they might respond IYKYK. Or for those of us who still...

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The Party Pooper

It happens every year at this time. The Christmas decorations are going up, the smell of fresh greenery is in the air, the red velvet bows are still crisp, the melodies of Christmas carols follow us everywhere we go – except in church, of course. There is a festive...

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Beginning at the End

Happy New Year! Today is the first day of Advent, the beginning of a new year in the church calendar.  We have spent the last six months in what the church calls “ordinary time,” that long period between Pentecost, which is 50 days after Easter, and the First...

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Just Another Pagoda

Today is the last Sunday in the season of  Pentecost, the longest season of the church year. At one time the church referred to the season of Pentecost as “ordinary” time. From May through the end of November there are no big festivals or celebrations on the...

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