Calvary Episcopal Church - Memphis, TN

While the command to love is old, the demands of love will always be as new as the moment at hand and the person in front of you. It may even be that love is not the action, so much as it is the curious attention itself.

This passion Gospel just read in parts reveals a different sort of God – the God who endures betrayal, incarceration, and torture, the God who is moved by and weeps over the plight of humanity. God is the Rock of our salvation, but God is also a Rock who weeps.

Justin J. Pearson is the fourth son of teenage parents who went on to careers in the ministry and education. His life journey has been marked by a restless pursuit of justice ranging from educational equity to access to environmental justice and liberation. He was one of the founders and leaders of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (now Memphis Community Against Pollution, or MCAP), which suc...

Geoff Calkins is the sports columnist for The Daily Memphian and hosts The Geoff Calkins Show on 92.9ESPN. He has covered eight Olympics, a dozen Super Bowls, and more Memphis football and basketball games than he could possibly count. But he has always been less focused on the games than on the people who play them, and on the stories those people have to tell. In that way, he takes inspiration f...

Rabbi Micah Greenstein and Rev. Sam Teitel have been buddies since 2017. They share a love of scripture, a belief in social justice motivated by faith, and an aversion to weak coffee. Micah is the senior rabbi at Temple Israel; Sam is the minister at The Church of the River. They are thrilled to be collaborating on this sermon together for LPS and hope to multiply the life of a sermon by the power...

Rabbi Micah Greenstein and Rev. Sam Teitel have been buddies since 2017. They share a love of scripture, a belief in social justice motivated by faith, and an aversion to weak coffee. Micah is the senior rabbi at Temple Israel; Sam is the minister at The Church of the River. They are thrilled to be collaborating on this sermon together for LPS and hope to multiply the life of a sermon by the power...

The Rev. Dr. Kathryn (Kat) Kimmel grew up in North Carolina where she learned to love the mountains, county fairs, and livermush (no, you don't want to know what's in it!)—and it was there she was formed and loved into faith. She has served in chaplain and pastor roles during her years of ministry. Kimmel and her husband, Tom, moved to Memphis in 2021 when she was called as senior pastor at First...

The Rev. Dan Matthews is a consistent favorite at Calvary’s Lenten Preaching Series. His preaching is inspired by powerful and meaningful stories like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. In light of these stories, Matthews pushes us to recognize when genuine blessings come our way. He believes that these moments of being “kissed by God” are more than being in the right place at the right time...

Dr. Ellen Davis spends most of her waking hours writing and teaching (or getting ready to write and teach) about the Bible in ways that may illuminate the difficulties and beauties of being human. Those difficulties may be personal (getting along with our neighbors), spiritual (getting along with God), or public and global (climate change, interfaith relations). Her latest book, Opening Israel’s S...

Dr. Ellen Davis spends most of her waking hours writing and teaching (or getting ready to write and teach) about the Bible in ways that may illuminate the difficulties and beauties of being human. Those difficulties may be personal (getting along with our neighbors), spiritual (getting along with God), or public and global (climate change, interfaith relations). Her latest book, Opening Israel’s S...

We read these stories over and over again not because we think they’ll turn out differently but because we find ourselves in the stories and we get a glimpse in them of what we can bear.

God's evolving call in the Rev. Lisa Anderson’s life has led her from pediatric chaplaincy and parish ministry to caring for those experiencing homelessness. As founding director of Room in the Inn-Memphis and pastor of Colonial Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Anderson lives each day in an atmosphere of holy hospitality. She experiences being welcomed into the lives of people who are living unshel...

Rabbi Katie Bauman serves as the senior rabbi of Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bauman was blessed to spend the first ten years of her rabbinate at Temple Israel in Memphis, Tennessee, where she focused on worship renewal, youth and adult education, young adult engagement, and counseling and pastoral care as an assistant and then associate rabbi. Along with her Temple Israel work, Rabb...

The Rev. Rufus Smith IV is the senior pastor of Hope Church (EPC) in Memphis. He joined Hope’s staff in September 2010 and became senior pastor in 2013. Under Smith’s leadership, Hope has transitioned from a predominantly Caucasian church to a multi-ethnic, multi-generational congregation. In 2016, he founded the Memphis Christian Pastor’s Network (MCPN), an ethnically and denominationally diverse...

Rabbi Katie Bauman serves as the senior rabbi of Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bauman was blessed to spend the first ten years of her rabbinate at Temple Israel in Memphis, Tennessee, where she focused on worship renewal, youth and adult education, young adult engagement, and counseling and pastoral care as an assistant and then associate rabbi. She is interviewed by the Rev. Katherin...

Jesus taught that God isn’t waiting to wreak havoc on people who go astray, but there is an urgency to our lives, and we may have to change course to find the abundant life we were made for.

Dr. Nichols, a native of Memphis, TN, is the organizing pastor of Freedom’s Chapel Christian Church (DOC). Following the death of a childhood friend, Dr. Nichols created A More Excellent Way, Inc., an organization with a mission to help individuals from all walks of life to enter into, engage in, and maintain spiritually healthy relationships while eliminating relationship violence. She is a found...

The Rev. Joshua Narcisse is a proud native of Queens, NY, who now calls Memphis home. He is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a co-host of “The Mystic,” a monthly discussion forum on spirituality, faith, and meaning hosted at Crosstown Concourse. He currently serves as director of spiritual care at Church Health, a faith-based healthcare organization caring for the uninsured and u...

Pádraig Ó Tuama’s interests lie in language, violence, and religion. Having grown up in a place that has a long history of all three (Ireland, yes, but also Europe) he finds that language might be the most redeeming of all three of these. In language, there is the possibility of vulnerability, of surprise, of the creative movement towards something as yet unseen. He is inspired by any artist of wo...

Pádraig Ó Tuama’s interests lie in language, violence, and religion. Having grown up in a place that has a long history of all three (Ireland, yes, but also Europe) he finds that language might be the most redeeming of all three of these. In language, there is the possibility of vulnerability, of surprise, of the creative movement towards something as yet unseen. He is inspired by any artist of wo...

As we prayed Psalm 27 together this morning, the raw prayer of an individual became the raw prayer of our community. We all shared in prayer the deepest longing of our heart – to be in such intimate communion with God that we dare to seek the face of our Lord.

The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers serves as Canon to Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry and spearheads Episcopal efforts concerning evangelism, reconciliation, and creation care. Her newest book, The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline and New Hope for Beloved Community (March 2021), follows her popular titles Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other and the Spirit of Transformation and The E...

A highly respected scholar and public intellectual, the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones is the sixteenth President of the historic Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The first woman to head the 182-year-old institution, Jones is a past president of the American Academy of Religion, which annually hosts the world’s largest gathering of scholars of religion. Jones came to Union after seventeen years...

A highly respected scholar and public intellectual, the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones is the sixteenth President of the historic Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The first woman to head the 182-year-old institution, Jones is a past president of the American Academy of Religion, which annually hosts the world’s largest gathering of scholars of religion. Jones came to Union after seventeen years...

The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers serves as Canon to Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry and spearheads Episcopal efforts concerning evangelism, reconciliation, and creation care. Her newest book, The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline and New Hope for Beloved Community (March 2021), follows her popular titles Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other and the Spirit of Transformation and The E...