A Sermon for Epiphany 2 (Year B)

“So, uh… what’s next for you?”

When I got sober and realized that if I wanted to stay sober, I’d need to leave my graduate program, it felt like I was fielding this question constantly.

“What’s next?”

Filtering out the frustration-fueled profanity, I’d deflect by saying, “I don’t know. We’ll see.” Because I really didn’t know what was next. I was at a fork in the road, but I didn’t know what path to take—what path God wanted me to take. And I didn’t know how to even begin figuring that out.

Life is chock-full of those transitions—moments when we are faced with the question of what’s next. We graduate; we get laid off; we lose loved ones; we retire. And we say, “I don’t know what’s next. We’ll see.”

But how will we see?

A Sermon for Advent 4 (Year B)

The last couple of hours before company arrived were always a mad frenzy at my house growing up. Maybe yours too? We each had our job. Mine was always sweeping out the entryway (I think partly because it kept me out of the way). In eager expectation, we cleaned the house and seemingly surface in it to prepare our home for the guests who were coming.

A Sermon for All Souls’ Day

“Ammachi, why do you pray for Appachan?”

It wasn’t until much later that I finally understood her answer.

“Because I love him, and God loves him.”

A Sermon for Proper 18 (Year A)

It’s hard to watch people we love sabotage themselves.

Early on in my recovery journey, I had a friend who either could not or would not follow the path of honesty and candor that is necessary for healing from any kind of addiction. He couldn’t be honest with himself. And that meant that he couldn’t be honest with us—his friends, his community. And so, as you might imagine, we had to watch the consequences play out in slow-motion.

A Sermon for Proper 12 (Year A)

“When I grow up, I wanna be just like her.”

Who are the people you’ve said that about?

For me, the ones who stand out have been the wise and faith-filled women who have embraced, supported, and instructed me throughout my life. Women like my Ammachi—my grandmother—who taught me that God abides with us even in the deepest uncertainty and pain. Women like my 7th grade English teacher, who reminded me that God intends so much more for us than just bare survival. Women like my favorite nuns in Wisconsin, who showed me that God already has us enclosed in an eternal embrace and harbors no blame or wrath towards us in our weakness. When I grow up, I wanna be just like those women.

A Sermon for Proper 10 (Year A)

We’re used to a world of clear cause and effect. “A” causes “B.” It’s a basic understanding of the universe that guides us in pretty much all the work we do. We think: If we can crack the code—if we can learn enough about “A”—then we can develop the right strategies, tools, and tricks, and we can accomplish “B”—what we want.

A Sermon for Proper 9 (Year A)

“This isn’t who I want to be. Why do I do this? This isn’t who I want to become.”

I was sitting on the couch in my sponsor’s basement, going over a 4th & 5th step—taking a moral inventory of myself and admitting the exact nature of my wrongs. I was owning up to sin in my life: the ways I have missed the mark, the ways I’ve broken relationships, the ways I have refused to love wholeheartedly.

And I was frustrated.

A Sermon for Proper 8 (Year A)

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones…” It’s an image and phrase that resounds, resonates, echoes throughout the Gospels. And here Jesus doesn’t quite finish the sentence, but elsewhere he makes it explicit. “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to these little ones gives it to me.” This is good—giving a cold cup of water and serving the little ones—because as we do it for the little ones we do it for Christ himself.