St Thomas

Christopher Thomas Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent, Year A – 3/1/2020 Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Psalm 32 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11 One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1983 cult comedy classic, “National Lampoon’s Family Vacation.” “…Family Vacation” records the ups-and-downs, the trials and temptations of the quintessential American family, the Griswolds. At first glance, the Griswolds, Clark and Ellen, seem to have everything that good, clean 1980’s living can provide – a beautiful home, two seemingly well-adjusted kids, and a dog. They have it all, right down to the proverbial white-picket fence. What, oh what, could possibly make this scene any better? How about a road trip! To Walley World, of all places, that nirvana of theme parks, where happiness and joy abound, the streets are lined with gold, there are no lines for rides or bathrooms, and all things are pristine and perfect! Well,…

Christopher Thomas Sermon for Ash Wednesday, Year A – 2/26/20 Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 Psalm 103 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Have you ever had the opportunity to touch and to feel ashes? Ashes are kind of grainy, but as they get smeared around, they tend to have a kind of oily, greasy type quality. Ashes are the vestiges, the remains, of something that was. In their very creation, ashes have given up everything that identified what they were in their previous form and content, retaining only their most basic, elemental content. Something that was, at once, distinctly identifiable, say, maybe, a palm branch, woven by human hands into a palm cross, carried around or displayed somewhere for a year, meets the fire of furnace, and, in an instant, forfeits it’s green or brown shaped cross identity, returning to…

Christopher Thomas Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A – 2/23/2020 Feast of the Transfiguration Exodus 24:12-18 Psalm 99 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, “Learning to Walk in the Dark” Transfiguration. The notion, why, the very idea, that something, or someone, or some ones, can come into contact with another something, or someone, or some ones, and be changed. Fundamentally, radically, altered, changed, meta-morphosed, from a cellular level, out, is mind-boggling to me. My brain dances with excitement. Transfiguration. Things are moving in ways we cannot begin to ask or imagine, but we should, and we must imagine! Why…