Sermons

    It has always struck me as kind of a shame that Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, removed from any special notice at Sunday worship services.     Most years, including this one, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the first Sunday of...

    Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us...

Charlie Plumb was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He returned safely from 75 combat missions. But on his 76th flight, his plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected from the plane just in time, pulled his parachute, and drifted to the ground. He was captured...

    I was doing some web surfing this week when a headline caught my eye. "My Church Doesn't Know What to Do Anymore" it screamed at me.     "Leading a church is harder now, in 2021, than it was in 2020," writes Elizabeth Felicetti, rector of St....

Jesus said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”     St. Anthony of Thebes, brought up in a wealthy Christian family, but orphaned at age 18, heard these...

    Sometimes I think the most amazing thing about Jesus is the patience he has with his disciples. Today’s Gospel reading is a good example. Jesus is trying to tell the disciples something important.     He knows that his time on earth...

    It seems to start out as just a casual, idle conversation. Jesus and his disciples are walking to the village of Caesarea Philippi, in the northernmost part of Israel.     His actions have been gaining notice lately – the healing of a...

    "Be kind to one another."     It's such a simple instruction Paul gives to the Christian community in Ephesus. Be kind to each other. They are words that we might be tempted to skip over. We've all heard them all our lives. Be kind,...

    "We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming."     These words were written by the apostle Paul to the church in Ephesus almost 2,000...

    Do you believe in miracles?     It's a fair question to ask people of faith. Our scripture is full of miracles, defined as "an extraordinary and astonishing happening that is attributed to the presence and action of an ultimate or...

    "Jesus saw a great crowd and he had compassion for them."     Compassion. It's at the core of who Jesus is. Time and time again in the gospels we hear of Jesus' compassion -- for the crowds who have gathered to see and hear him, for...

    You know it is going to be an interesting week of sermon preparation when you open a commentary on the Gospel lesson and read this, “The story of the beheading of John the Baptist is hardly a text one would spontaneously choose for a sermon.”     No...

    Happy Fourth of July! On this day that we celebrate the founding of this great nation that we all love, it seems appropriate to begin the day in church with prayers for our country.     By any standards the past year has been a difficult one for...