Category Archives: sermon

Year A Advent 1

And so the season, the year, begins in the middle – in the middle of the story, in the middle of a field where two men are working, and there then was one; in the mill, where two women are … Continue reading

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Year A Advent 1: starting in the middle

In the middle of the story, in the middle of the day, when two women are in the middle of a studied silence over the millstone. They are not speaking. One of them is not speaking so hard, she disappears. … Continue reading

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Sermon for Christ the King 2013

The gospel of Luke, which we have been reading since last Advent; the gospel of Luke, from its beginning to its end, is about a revolution, the quiet revolution of the Magnificat, the secret story of a young woman who … Continue reading

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Christ the King

The honest thief Don’t tell me you are saving me while we hang here side by side in searing pain under a searing sun; don’t talk to me of gardens of ease where mercy falls down like a river when … Continue reading

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Year C Proper 28: Work and do not be weary

They are words that strike terror into the hearts of the unemployed, the underemployed, the working poor, the uninsured. They are words that form a hard and heavy stone in the stomachs of too many people, even in these enlightened … Continue reading

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Anything but straightforward

“Those who will not work will not eat:”  There are several nuances to the seemingly harsh sentence that we miss when we reduce it to a slogan. … …  there is the description of work itself. We use the word work … Continue reading

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Year C Proper 27: No such thing as a stupid question?

You know how we always tell each other, and especially our children, that there’s no such thing as a stupid question? I have to think that the Sadducees were pushing the envelope on this one. It wasn’t because they were … Continue reading

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Responding to a Sadducee

Resurrection is not “a conjuring trick with bones,”* nor is the resurrection a reality-tv show about the life of seven brothers and their unnamed widow-sister-wife Resurrection is not undone by the cynicism of the resurrected one blinking, bewildered in the … Continue reading

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All Saints

The letter to the Ephesians makes a perfect sermon all by itself for All Saints and a day of baptism. I hardly feel as though I need say more. But there is more. Listen to the words that come just … Continue reading

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Year C Proper 25: Stand closer

Have you ever read the brilliant dystopian novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley? I won’t give the whole game away, but one of the themes in the book is social engineering, which is achieved by a mixture of genetic … Continue reading

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