A Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany (Year B)

It’s somewhere between a grimace and a look of pity—the face people make when they learn that I grew up in churches that took pride in labels like ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘Evangelical.’ And it’s completely understandable given that the face of Christianity for many in America is the fire-and-brimstone Evangelical preacher proselytizing on street corners. There are some things I do actually value about my Evangelical childhood. I got to know the Bible really well and learned to pray off-the-cuff. But the Evangelical approach to “sharing the good news” was not one of those gifts.

A Sermon for Epiphany 5 (Year B)

“Are you free? Are you really free? How do you know?” It was a helluva way to start a college class. And when my professor opened the PoliSci seminar by basically asking us to define the concept of freedom, at first I braced myself for a heady lecture divorced from reality. But while the question may have been framed in big, sweeping terms, the discussion that followed actually revealed pretty quickly that freedom is far from some vague abstraction without any tangible meaning for our lives.

A Sermon for Epiphany 3 (Year B)

I had a magic couch in my basement growing up. In the universe of make-believe that my sister and I created, that beat-up, old couch transformed into so many things: a castle, a spaceship, a stage for our plays. One day, that couch was a boat on the water, as my little sister and I threw a big crocheted blanket over the side “fishing” for the Beanie Babies strewn on the floor. I was so captivated and immersed in our imaginary work, that my grandmother’s voice didn’t even register at first. But when I realized she was calling us upstairs for dinner, I leapt to my feet and jumped towards the stairs…only to fall flat on my face with my toes tangled up in the “net” I was leaving behind in the “boat.”

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.