Sick of This

Sick of This

A Sermon for Lent 4 (Year C)

How many days in a row can you eat the same thing before you get sick of it? 2… 3 days? A week?

I’m a creature of extreme habit; so my tolerance for culinary monotony might be a little higher than average. But even I eventually get sick of eating the same thing, day in and day out. I think most of us probably know the feeling. If we’re fortunate, we’re able to change things up. We can choose something new when we’ve gotten sick of the old. “Eh, I’m sick of pizza; let’s get sushi instead.” But sometimes we don’t get a choice.

My Body, My Blood

My Body, My Blood

A Sermon for the Feast of the Annunciation

Mary was a priest.

Now, I don’t mean that she was a priest in the way that, say, Father Craig is a priest. I’m not saying that she was necessarily ordained, ministering the Sacraments and other rituals of the Church. But still, today, on this feast of the Annunciation, we do see Mary as a priest in a very real sense.

Reaching Roots

Reaching Roots

A Sermon for Epiphany 6 (Year C)

“Just reach out if you need anything!”

That phrase gets a lot of mileage in our lives. Maybe too much mileage… It’s the standard line that we offer to friends, and that they offer us in return. But how often do you actually take someone up on that offer? I know I rarely do. Even when I know I need it… even when I know the offer’s sincere… I hate actually asking for help.

Gallons of Grace

Gallons of Grace

A Sermon for Epiphany 2 (Year C)

“I’m running on empty.”

How many of us have heard or said something like these words in just the last few weeks? The past two years have taken so much from us—from each and every one of us. They’ve taken our health, our loved ones, our lives, our hope. The pandemic has sapped away so much of our energy—our will to live. It’s drained away so much of our joy. And now, as yet another variant of the virus rages around us, we’re seeing the tiny glimpses of “normal” that we’d caught slip away before our eyes. And it’s crushing.

It’s understandable that we would feel desolate, worn down, forsaken. This is hard. It’s so, so hard. The heartbreak from canceling plans and refusing hugs. The sadness from covering our lips that long to smile and sing. The exhaustion from trying to nurture our children in the midst of this storm. The frustration from struggling to keep patients alive. It’s okay to feel like you’ve got nothing left to give to feel like you’re running on empty. Because our emptiness is not the end. The story doesn’t end when our wells run dry.

Bodies that Matter to God

Bodies that Matter to God

Seminary Chapel Reflection

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” — 1 Cor. 6:19-20

I don’t know if this will resonate with many of you, but this passage from Paul was a constant refrain in my childhood. The cheerleaders of Evangelical Protestant “purity culture” loved these verses as a way to discourage any activity they found even mildly objectionable.

A Full, Perfect & Sufficient Sacrifice

A Full, Perfect & Sufficient Sacrifice

A Sermon for Good Friday

Sacrifice is a troubling concept for many of us. And understandably so. Most of us aren’t used to the blood and guts involved in preparing the meat we eat. So animal sacrifice seems jarringly foreign—even primitive. And when we look at the violence of human sacrifice, our discomfort turns into (justifiable) disgust. How could Abraham even consider killing his son? How could God ask that of him? And today on Good Friday—where is the sense in Jesus’ bloody, gruesome sacrifice? How is that “good”? What kind of God demands a human life in order to forgive sins?

If that’s what this sacrifice stuff is about, then we want no part in it!

And that makes sense. It really does.

What We Hand On

What We Hand On

A Sermon for Maundy Thursday

“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you…” Every time I hear those words, a shiver runs down my spine. These four short verses that we just heard from Paul were what my childhood church used as a sort of eucharistic prayer on Communion Sundays. Paul’s account of the Last Supper—the first Eucharist—always evoked a sense of groundedness for me. I was fascinated as a kid with history and heritage and the idea of passing stories down through generations. And at some level, I knew intuitively that the Eucharist was part of a big story—bigger than any family history we rehearsed at home or national myth we learned in school. I wanted to share in this story more intimately; so as an 8 year old I looked forward with eager anticipation to my Easter baptism, when I would get to take Communion for the first time.