Sermons

The Rev’d Virginia Holleman Christmas 2, Year C – 01/02/2022 Jeremiah 31:7-14 Psalm 84:1-8 Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 In the Name of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit.  AMEN. My father was a West Pointer, a career military officer.  He was always fair but as a child I did not always think of him as being warm or loving.  I think he was but it wasn’t always apparent to me as a small child.  He was very strict, and he could be stern when we didn’t live up to his standards; what was apparent though was that his word was as good as gold, and if he thought we had been wronged he set out to make it right, and he could be as protective and defensive as any mother bear with her cubs.  Today we call that integrity, but to me as a little girl it meant…

Christopher Thomas Sermon for The Feast of All Saints, Year B – 11/7/21 Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 Psalm 24 Revelation 21:1-6a John 11:32-44   I AM.  I AM.  I AM. Immortality Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the softly falling snow. I am the gentle show’rs of rain I am the fields of ripening grain. I am in the morning hush, I am in the graceful rush of far-off birds in circling flight I am the starshine of the night. I am in ev’ry flower that blooms I am in still and empty rooms I am the child that yearns to sing: I am in each lovely thing. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die. Clare Harner Lyon I am Resurrection and…

Stephen Waller Homily for Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 26 – 10/31/21 Ruth 1:1-18 Psalm 146 Hebrews 9:11-14 Mark 12:28-34  From the Book of Ruth: “Where you die, I will die — there will I be buried.” Can you see them?  Do you sense their presence among us here this morning?   My friends in Christ and Thomas the Apostle they are, indeed, here with us today for our Eucharist…they are here with us for every Eucharist. The Book of Common Prayer tells us that “Life is changed, not ended” when we die to this life.  We are today and always are surrounded by a great Cloud of Witnesses…by those who have entered into the nearer Presence of God.  They show up at every Eucharist…not sleeping in as some of us are on occasion tempted to do. Can you see them?  Have you ever seen them?  Can you? The…

Christopher Thomas Sermon for Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 25 – 10/24/21 Job 42:1-6, 10-17 Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22) Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 10:46-52 Draw us in the Spirit’s tether; for when humbly, in thy name, Two or three are met together, Thou art in the midst of them: Alleluya!  Alleluya!  Touch we now thy garment’s hem. How do you define sin? “Well, I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.  But I know sin when I it when I see it…”[1] Seriously, as a Christian, a confessed follower of Jesus Christ, you really ought to have a good, working definition of what you think sin is.  What constitutes sin, for you?  Is it a standard of abiding by rules and laws, maybe the Ten Commandments, or…

George R. Sumner Sermon for 21st Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 24 – 10/17/2021 Job 38:1-7, (34-41) Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37c Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45 All human societies have rites of initiation, things you have to go through to qualify for something or other- boot camp, HR intro, spring training, frosh week.  You can surely think of examples in your life. For most of us clergy, at least of my vintage, this included something called CPE, clinical pastoral education. It meant long hours in a nursing home or a prison or a psych ward or somewhere similar, including on call weekends with a beeper if someone should die.  And then, in small groups, it meant processing what you had experienced, and submitting yourself to critique about how your own family of origin, affected how you see things. A little self-awareness is a good thing in a priest. It having…