Sermons

    There is probably not another story in the entire Bible that has been more misinterpreted, misread, and misused than the Genesis story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent that we heard this morning.     One frequent misinterpretation of...

    The pattern is the same every year.     We celebrate Easter and God’s victory over death in the resurrection of Jesus, the son of God. Then 50 days later we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples at Pentecost....

    Today is Pentecost, one of the most festive days of the church year. It's the day that at long last the disciples receive the promised Holy Spirit.     The Pentecost account in the Book of Acts is one of the most vivid stories in scripture. Tongues...

    While most of us were busy doing other things this week a major feast day of the Church slipped by. This past Thursday was Ascension Day, the day that Christ, who has already risen from the dead, finally ascends into heaven.     Ascension Day is...

    When I read today's gospel a man came to mind who I have not thought about in many years. Ernest was a fellow parishioner at St. Ann's in Nashville.     He was a quiet, unobtrusive man, probably in his mid-80s. He had long been a...

    Of all the technological advances in the past couple of decades the one that I love the most is probably the GPS, whether in my car or on my phone. As the men in my family will tell you, I have a notoriously bad sense of direction.. So I take great joy in typing...

    It is the first Sunday after Easter, which every Episcopal priest knows means it's Doubting Thomas Sunday. The gospel reading we heard today is exactly the same the Sunday after Easter every year.     I'll let you in on a clergy...

    Wow! I could just stand here and look at you all morning. It is so wonderful to see your faces, or at least your eyes. It is so wonderful to hear more than one or two voices joining together to say the prayers, the psalms, the responses. It is so...

    Unimaginable suffering. Excruciating pain. Bottomless grief.  Incomprehensible cruelty.  All of that is on display on this most somber day when we remember the death, the execution, of Jesus.      It's a hard story to...

    “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”     These words are from the 51st Psalm, considered to be scripture’s quintessential prayer of penitence. Tradition says the verses were penned by the great King David after he...

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure? Measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? In inches?...

    The picture from my childhood remains amazingly clear in my mind all these years later. My illustrated Bible, given to me by my grandparents when I was three years old, has picture after picture of Jesus.     There is the sweet, cherubic, haloed...

    Lent this year seems to be a time of waiting.      We're waiting on vaccines, waiting for the pandemic to be over, waiting to get back to our normal lives, waiting to see one another in person, to go to church, to travel....

    It is not exactly the kind of post-baptism celebration to which we are accustomed – no brunch with proud family, friends and godparents, no champagne, no gifts, no oohing and aahing over the newly baptized.     There is none of that for Jesus....

    "I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church to an observance of a holy Lent."     This year, these words that I have said almost every Ash Wednesday for more than a quarter of a century sound different to me....