All Souls Parish Sermons

The Rev. Phil Brochard The sermon explores Jesus' invitation, "Come to me, all you who are weary," by placing it in the context of John the Baptizer's question from prison: "Are you the one who is to come?" John's uncertainty reflects the surprising nature of Jesus' ministry, which transforms the world not through political power or revolution, but through countless acts of mercy, healing, and com...

The Rev. Emily Boring This sermon reflects on Jesus' teaching that discipleship requires not only serving others but also accepting our own vulnerability and dependence. Drawing on Matthew's Gospel, the preacher explains that Jesus intentionally sent his disciples out with no provisions so they would have to depend on the hospitality of strangers. This dependence is not incidental but essential to...

The Rev. Phil Brochard Using stories of political disagreements with his father and his mother's earlier conflicts with her own father, the preacher reflects on how family tensions often arise when visions of justice challenge accepted social norms. He connects these experiences to a Juneteenth sermon about living between the "almost" of promised freedom and the "not yet" of fully realized justice...

The Rev. Erika Jackson Using the framework of living between "almost and not yet," this Juneteenth sermon explores the gap between freedom promised and freedom realized. Juneteenth itself exists because enslaved people in Texas remained in bondage more than two years after emancipation had been declared, revealing that legal freedom and lived freedom are not always the same. The preacher connects...

The Rev. Dr. Bill McNabb Preaching during Pride Month, the preacher celebrates God's inclusive love and focuses on what he calls "the greatest verse in the Bible": Romans 5:1, which declares that believers are justified by faith and have peace with God through Jesus Christ. He argues that after describing humanity's brokenness, Paul delivers the astonishing good news that God has reconciled humani...

The Rev. Phil Brochard The sermon connects the founding of the Metropolitan Community Church by Troy Perry in 1968 with Jesus' ministry among tax collectors and sinners. Perry created a worshiping community for LGBTQ Christians who had been rejected by society and the church, offering them a place to experience God's love and healing. Drawing on Jesus' call of Matthew and his statement, “I desire...

The Rev. Rachel Dykzeul On Trinity Sunday, the preacher reflects on the Trinity not as a doctrine to be solved but as a mystery to be embraced. Recalling a childhood conversation with a pastor grandfather who admitted he could not explain the Trinity, she argues that humility before divine mystery is an essential part of faith. Drawing on Genesis, she highlights the plural and relational language...

The Rev. Emily Boring This sermon explores mystical experience, depression, healing, and Christian community through the preacher’s personal experience with ketamine therapy. The preacher describes how ketamine sessions produced profound experiences of interconnectedness, dissolving feelings of isolation and revealing a deep sense of divine unity. She reinterprets depression as disconnection rathe...

The Rev. Phil Brochard This sermon reflects on the period between Jesus’s Ascension and Pentecost, when the disciples waited in uncertainty for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The preacher connects the disciples’ “in-between time” to today’s cultural instability, political upheaval, climate anxiety, and technological transformation. The disciples ask Jesus whether he will restore the kingdom of Isr...

The Rev. Michael Lemaire

The Rev. Phil Brochard The sermon critiques the idea of an “AI Jesus” as a modern expression of human loneliness and longing for connection. Drawing on John 14, it explains that Jesus’s promise of “many dwelling places” is not about a physical heaven but about ongoing relational presence. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” is presented not as exclusion but as an invitation into trust and conn...

The Rev. Phil Brochard The sermon uses a real-life experience with sheep to illustrate that trust is essential for following. It explores Jesus’ statement “I am the gate” not as exclusion, but as protection and guidance, especially in light of the story of the man born blind who is cast out and then welcomed by Jesus. Jesus is portrayed as the threshold—both protector and guide—leading people into...

The Rev. Emily Boring The sermon connects a personal experience of spiritual disconnection during COVID with the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. It emphasizes that failing to recognize God is a normal part of human limitation, especially in times of grief and uncertainty. Christ’s presence is not dependent on our awareness but remains constant, often revealed through companionship, h...

The Rev. Joseph Delgado The sermon explores how the hope and renewal of Easter can be sustained and shared. Using the metaphor of newborn babies, it highlights the theme of potential and new beginnings. Reflecting on Jesus’s post-resurrection appearance to his fearful disciples, the preacher emphasizes that instead of condemning them, Jesus expresses faith in them and sends them out into the world...

The Rev. Phil Brochard This Easter sermon contrasts the coercive power of empires with the life-giving power revealed in Jesus’s resurrection. Through the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection—marked by earthquakes and upheaval—the preacher argues that domination and violence do not have the final word. Instead, true power is found in sacrificial love, mercy, and life. Though difficult to trust...

The Rev. Emily Boring This Easter sermon explores resurrection not as a distant historical event but as a living, transformative experience. Through Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Christ, it highlights how hope emerges even in deep grief and invites believers to recognize resurrection in their own lives. Rather than clinging to past experiences, the sermon calls the community to carry f...

The Rev. Michael Lemaire The sermon asks whether Jesus died a “good death,” concluding that although his death was painful and humiliating, it was “good” because it aligned with his life’s purpose of self-giving love. In contrast to a culture that fears and tries to control death, the sermon argues that humans are called to live lives of self-giving love rather than self-preservation. By practicin...

Annie Hayes On the night before his death, Jesus chooses to wash his disciples’ feet—an intimate, humble act that redefines power and belonging in God’s kingdom. This “foolish” love becomes both a gift and a command: the disciples are to receive it and then embody it by loving others in the same way. As Jesus prepares to leave, he entrusts his mission to them, declaring through his actions that th...

The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers The sermon explores Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem as a subversion of worldly power. While it mirrors royal processions, Jesus enters humbly on a donkey, fulfilling prophecy and embodying a different kind of kingship rooted in peace and self-giving love. The preacher connects this act to modern nonviolent protest movements that challenge injustice, while also empha...

The Rev. Emily Boring This sermon reflects on grief, resurrection, and divine love through the story of Lazarus. While Christian tradition offers powerful language for mourning, faith does not remove the pain of loss. Like Mary and Martha, we are invited to bring honest grief before God. Jesus reframes resurrection not as a distant future event but as a present reality grounded in relationship wit...

The Rev. Phil Brochard The sermon connects a story from All Souls about recognizing a formerly homeless man who had transformed his life with the Gospel story of the man born blind in John 9. After gaining sight, the healed man is no longer recognized by his neighbors because they had always defined him by his blindness. The passage highlights a deeper theme of spiritual perception: while the heal...

The Rev. Rachel Dykzeul The sermon reflects on a world divided by conflict and identity politics, using the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman as a model for crossing human boundaries. The historical hostility between Jews and Samaritans illustrates how deeply communities can exclude one another. Drawing on Miroslav Volf’s theology of “exclusion and embrace,” the sermon describes reconciliatio...

The Rev. Phil Brochard The preacher begins with the joyful discovery of a marble run sculpture at the Albany Bulb, where freeing a clogged channel of marbles led to a sudden cascade of movement and sound. This becomes a metaphor for spiritual awakening. The sermon then explores why Nicodemus, a religious leader, comes to Jesus by night. His confusion about being “born again” reflects the limits of...

The Rev. Emily Boring Using the image of hovering over a deep ocean drop-off, the sermon explores human longing as a boundary between the finite and the infinite. Reframing Adam and Eve and Jesus in the wilderness as two responses to hunger, the preacher suggests that longing itself is not sin. Adam and Eve grasp to eliminate their limits, leading to alienation. Jesus inhabits his hunger with trus...

The Rev. Phil Brochard Reflecting on writing their aunt’s obituary, the preacher explores how obituaries reveal what a person truly treasured in life. This becomes a lens for understanding Lent as a yearly reminder of mortality and a chance to reorient our hearts. Drawing on Jesus’ teaching about almsgiving, prayer, fasting, and treasure in Matthew’s Gospel, the sermon invites listeners to pay att...