Notoriously Episcopalian

A sermon offered on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2021, at St. Barnabas, Roanoke, and the Church of the Messiah, Heflin. Principal text: Luke 2:1-20 “Each Christmas, God interrupts our world and calls us to return to Bethlehem through familiar scripture, prayer, and song. And each Christmas, the story of Jesus’ birth does not change. Mary and Joseph, the angels and shepherds, all get to Bethlehem th...

This is a sermon offered on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 19, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama. Principal text: Luke 1:39-55 “Some scholars have noted that the Magnificat is the song the church loves to sing but hates to hear. We can handle the challenging words of Mary when it is the Mary of western art—demure and passive. The words get more dangerous when it is Mary,...

A sermon offered on the 3rd Sunday of Advent at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama, on December 12, 2021. Principal text: Luke 3:7-18 "I would be willing to bet you didn’t come to church this morning to be chastised by a wilderness prophet. But Advent is a challenging season. We can’t make it to the manger or to the Kingdom of heaven without hearing the challenging words of John in the w...

A sermon offered for the 2nd Sunday of Advent, December 5, 2021, at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Roanoke, Alabama. Principal text: Luke 3:1-6 "But in this short introduction of John the Baptist, we learn a lot about the vocation of a prophet. We learn that prophets work in the messiness of real history. The work of the prophet should never be about the prophet, but instead should always point...

A sermon offered for the 1st Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2021, at St. Paul's in Greensboro, AL.Principal text: Ps. 25:1-9 "It is our trust in God that allows us to wait expectantly and actively. It is our trust in God, in God’s love and compassion, that can guide us in sorting out who or what to trust in this world. When we learn the ways of God, we can sort through the spin of this world by lo...

A sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King, November 21, 2021, offered at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, AL. Principal Text: John 18:33-37 "The truth of Jesus, standing in front of Pilate, is that GOD wields the power of life. And that the life of God’s kingdom is so abundant, that death itself will be defeated. And those that belong to life, to the abundant life of God’s...

A sermon offered for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, November 14, 2021, at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Roanoke, Alabama. Principal text: Mark 13:1-8 “Now some folks want to say that the bad things that happen are God’s judgment. But the reality is that we humans are usually the best agents of destruction. As Christians, we are to not give into the fear, but instead, we are to point to the wa...

This is a sermon offered on November 7, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama. On this day the community observed the Feast of All Saints and celebrated 40 years of ministry in Heflin. Principal text: John 11:32-44 “We here joined together as the body of Christ through our baptism, are living Lazarus lives. Lazarus experienced death and new life but knew he would die again but woul...

A sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, October 31, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama. Principal Text: Mark 12:28-34 “For me, Halloween isn’t so much about thin space that lets ghosts in, but it is about the thin space that it creates in communities. This is a time when we walk our neighborhoods and see and talk to our neighbors. It is a time when we gather for fall festi...

A sermon offered on the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, October 24, 2021, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Greensboro, Alabama. Principal text: Mark 10:46-52 “Bartimaeus was ready for the question that would change his life. He was ready to answer that question that would take him deeper and would let him follow Jesus. Are you ready for that question?” This is a public episode. If you would like to...

A sermon for the 21st Sunday after Pentecost, October 17, 2021, at St. Simon Peter Episcopal Church in Pell City, Alabama. Principal Text: Mark 10:35-45 "So, when Jesus says that James and John can have their share of his cup and his baptism, he is saying that they can take their place as servants offering their lives as a ransom, as liberators, for many people." This is a public episode. If you w...

A sermon for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, October 10, 2021, offered at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, AL. Principal text: Mark 10:17-31. "For Francis hearing, the voice of Christ in that church was the first step in turning everything over to God, and that is the challenge of discipleship. What are you holding back from God? What do you need to let go of so that you can more fully follow...

A sermon offered on the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, October 3, 2021, at St. Barnabas in Roanoke, AL. “In claiming a rigid teaching on Christian marriage, we miss the important lessons that Jesus is offering in his shocking words. In this moment, Jesus is showing us how to read scripture. Jesus reads the passages of Deuteronomy in light of the passages in Genesis because it is in Genesis that God’...

A sermon offered on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, September 26, 2021, as part of the Retreat for the Alabama Integrative Ministry School (AIMS) at Camp McDowell. AIMS is a nonresidential formation program for people preparing to be ordained deacons or bivocational priests in the Diocese of Alabama ( www.dioala.org/aims ). Principal texts: James 5:13-20 * Mark 9:38-50 This is a public episode. I...

A sermon offered for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, September 19, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama. Principal text: James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a * Mark 9:30-37 "Here our Gospel reading lives out the choice that James is talking about. The wisdom of the world that is built in ambition and coveting leads to conflict and division. The disciples were arguing about who was the greatest,...

A sermon offered for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, September 12, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama. Principal text: James 3:1-12 "So, for James, we again have a choice between God and the world. We can allow ourselves to be turned around and twisted by the world, to bearing wrong fruit and offering a curse instead of a blessing. Or we, who are saved in Christ, can offer up o...

A sermon offered for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Roanoke, Alabama. Principal text: James 2:1-17 "See in the world’s system, while the folks in the middle may aspire to be the rich man, they typically suffer the same fate as the poor man. And so, we are left to answer James’ question, 'My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believ...

A sermon for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, August 29, 2021, offered at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Alabaster, Alabama. Principal Text:  James 1:17-27 "So how do we keep our hearts close to God? How do we practice God’s religion and not human traditions? James’ answer is we do, not just hear. Faith is to be enacted, not just in religious rituals, but in actions in community. Faith is not ab...

A sermon for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost, August 22, 2021, offered at St. Paul's in Greensboro, Alabama. Principal Text: Ephesians 6:10-20 "Strengthened by God, dressed in the armor of God, bound together in prayer with St. Paul and all the saints, we are called to stand firm in truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation, and to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel." This...

A sermon offered for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost, August 15, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama. Principal text: Ephesians 5:15-20 "Blessed Jonathan Daniels is certainly an example of living a life transformed by Baptism. He let his whole life be transformed by God and let himself be shaped through worship. Jonathan also shows us how to always give thanks and praise to God,...

A sermon for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, August 8, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama. "Right now, many in our communities are scared and angry, and they have a lot of reasons to be. But as Christians, we know that the dangers of lingering in that anger, the dangers of the devil finding a toehold to narrow our vision and thinking to just ourselves and not our neighbors and...

A sermon for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 1, 2021, offered at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Roanoke, Alabama. Principal Text: Ephesians 4:1-16 "So, we know that in our brokenness we are held together by the grace of God. Through loving truth, gentleness, and patience, we pick each other up and join together the body of Christ. Each new seam marking the precious love needed to bear wi...

A sermon offered on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, July 11, 2021, at the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, AL. “What this beautiful passage from Ephesians challenges us to do is to imagine the fullness of God’s family, and then add 1one. To imagine the limits of God’s saving work in creation, and then add one." Principal text: Ephesians 1:3-14 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss...

A sermon offered on the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, July 04, 2021, at St. Barnabas in Roanoke, AL. “All of David’s story has pointed us to God’s working in the world. On the one hand we see in this unification the success of David’s political dealings. But the real story is that the God that made the boy shepherd great, now makes him a shepherd king.” Principal text:  2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 This is...

A sermon offered on the 5th Sunday after Pentecost, June 27, 2021, at St. Peter’s in Talladega, AL. “And even here, in the depths of our grief, when we cannot even call God by name, God is present and saves us. And it is in these moments of darkness, if we don’t rush through that we can learn things and can feel God’s presence and salvation in a different way.” Principal text:  2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27...