Sermons

“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you.” That verse from the First Letter of Peter leapt out at me this week.  I have to admit that hope is not something I’ve given a lot of thought to lately. Even...

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” I have been preaching for a little more than a quarter-century now, and in all those years I have never...

Here we are in week six of what has become our new normal – the people of our community scattered across Atlanta, and really now scattered across the country – still coming together on Sunday morning to worship. And once again, as has been the case every week,...

Well, this is our fifth Sunday of virtual church, livestreaming our service first from the sanctuary, and for three weeks now from our dining room. As we enter our sixth week of staying at home I wonder – how are you doing? Are you in a routine that feels fairly...

    Dear friends in Christ: On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer. For this is the Passover of the Lord, in which,...

    “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”     This opening line of the 22nd psalm is one of the most plaintive cries in Scripture, or indeed, in all of literature.     It is a cry of agony, despair, and abandonment....

    It is the last night of Jesus’ earthly life, the last time he will have dinner with his friends. The specter of betrayal and death is hanging over him.      So how does he spend this last meal with his friends, this last time...

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the most sacred week of the year for Christians.  Normally this is also the church’s busiest week of the year. Choirs will have spent weeks rehearsing not just for today and Easter, but for special services on...

    Amazingly, it was only two weeks ago that we were gathered in person in this space in what I suspected would be our last physical gathering for some time. It seems like a lot longer, doesn’t it?     Our Old Testament reading that day was from the...

    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,...