St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church Albuquerque

On the fifth Sunday of Lent, the Rev. Lee Lowery preaches on extravagant love, and extravagant joy as practices of faith.

Lent isn’t about our ability to repent. Lent isn’t about our capacity to fix anything. Lent is about God’s wild mercy. Lent isn’t meant to teach us about our ability to apologize. Lent isn’t even meant to teach us about self-discipline. Rather this season is meant to teach us about the wildness and the wideness of God’s forgiveness. We believe in a God whose mercy defies all odds, defies all expec...

Beloved, the real power lies not in what we fear, but in what we trust, or rather, in whom we trust. Are we able to trust that God will give us the strength and courage to live through difficult and scary times? 

One of the most difficult questions I face as a priest seems like it should be one of the simplest. How do I join the church? I can give a technical answer. But the question of membership is a trickier than paperwork. Taking a page from Buddhism: true belonging is a process of vulnerability and taking refuge.

God loves us enough to honor our sovereignty.

This year it may help us to approach Lent differently, to shift our expectations...

Today we have two strange stories about glowing faces. Moses and Jesus both shine so brightly they are said to be transfigured. Jesus and Moses don’t change into different leaders with different faces and different values. Rather these are stories about human beings who suddenly are **more** visibly, more recognizably who they are.

Why love your enemies? Because practicing love, in the end costs you less than practicing hate. Hate consumes us. Hate embitters. Spending your energy practicing hate will not help you to grow as a person. Hate shrinks us. God does not want you to be smaller. You were made not for hate, but for love.

Jesus’ beatitudes name some of the very fabric of who we are meant to be, in a world too often deaf to that call. Jesus calls us to the Great Reversal.

In her first sermon as our Associate Rector, the Rev. Simone Drinkwater sits with the story of Jesus calling the disciples from their nets, to become fishers for people.

To be a spiritual person, in times of outrage, is watch patiently for the signs of hope. To be a spiritual person, in times of outrage, means never letting go of joy. To be a spiritual person, in times of outrage, means never letting the outrage win

After hearing Bishop Budde's words to the president in Washington this week, a sermon about the connection between our faith and our work for justice. If hearing Bishop Budde’s words this week gave you a new sense that faith might be a viable option for you, if hearing her name so clearly that it was because of her faith that she needed to plea with this president for mercy, you are not alone....

To confront the realities of our day, we will need resilience. Build power not panic, as immigration advocates say. Because whatever the future holds, God will be there, the Spirit will lead us. Water can still become wine.

Together we can keep going. When the going gets really tough. Together we can live together. Think more clearly. Feel more deeply. Love more extravagantly. Live more fully. Because we are planted in deeper ground.

This Epiphany season, take permission to lessen the busyness. If you’re holding on to anger or bitterness, let that relax as well. Loosen the knots between your shoulders. Know you can do so and strengthen your resolve at the same time.  Trust God is out there, working beyond our boundaries, beyond our grudges, beyond our sense of rightness or wrongness. God is out there, beyond our political orth...

On the first Sunday after Christmas, the Rev. Lee Lowery preaches about the meaning of the Word Made Flesh.

You were built to long for miracles. We are created to long for more than is possible. Let your heart yearn for God to be born in ways that astound, in ways that push you beyond what is comfortable. Only there, only when we are out beyond our usual borders, can we encounter the One who can save us.

Before Christmas, I think we need to spend some time with Mary, the real Mary, because she helps us understand what it means to be a person of faith in a dark time.

On the third Sunday of Advent, a sermon from our Preacher in Residence about John the Baptist, Rejoicing, and God's coming into the word.

On the second Sunday of Advent, a sermon about John the Baptist and deep subversive joy. What if, in these anxious days, what we really need to repent is the meagerness of our hope? 

The current moment makes talking about hope all the more challenging. Which is why Advent begins where it does. Today we encounter Jesus talking about the end of the world. Jesus begins with ominous signs in the heavens, the rushing of the seas, the distress of the people. Jesus begins where all hope for change begins, with disruption.

On the last Sunday of the Church year, the Rev. Lee Lowery ponders what it means that Christ comes to reign.

Yes, are living through a time of great upheaval, but don’t lose the horizon. Don’t forget that Christians are a people of hope, and often joy is our best protest. Don’t forget to imagine ways of surviving, and thriving, and defending our neighbors right to survive and thrive.

On the Sunday after the election, the Rev. Mike Angell preaches: We will face what is to come with wild and foolish grace. We will pray that God will grant us wisdom and courage. If you need a minute to grieve. That’s okay. But also know, as Howard Thurman told us, ours is a faith that teaches us how to survive. We will survive. And we will become the love-spreading difference-makers our world aga...

On All Saints Day, two days before the election, the rector preaches: The saints have a way of reminding us that our moment is just that, our moment. There have been moments like this before. There have been moments when hate has held sway over a large portion of the population. There have been times when violence and threats of violence were all around. The saints helped us survive. The saints he...