Rotten Apple Seeds

Here is today's sermon, Proper 7, Year A, June 25, 2023. It is based on the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, Genesis 21:8-21. It is the story of Abraham dismissing his slave Hagar and her son Ishmael. This is the woman with whom Abraham first had a child after the Lord promised in the covenant that Abraham would be the father of nations. After his wife Sarah had a child Isaac, she wanted to...

Here is today's sermon, Proper 6, Year A, June 18, 2023. In it I bring together the reading from Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7) and the Gospel reading, Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23). Genesis emphasizes the merits and virtues of hospitality and the Gospel reading emphasizes the need to evangelize. I discuss how these show the two polarities of the Anglican tradition: between Benedictine monasticism and Fr...

Today's readings are the call of Abram to the Promised Land in Genesis and the call of Matthew in the Gospel of Matthew. I asked the congregation what they wanted me to preach on and they wanted to hear about the call of Matthew and the healing of the Woman with the hemorrhage and the raising of the Official's Daughter. I made the observation that much of Jesus' ministry was to call in...

This is the sermon for today, Sermon for Trinity Sunday, Year A June 4, 2023. Of course it is impossible to understand fully, much less, communicate, the nature of the Trinity, of God in Three Persons, while maintaining essential Unity of the Godhead. Instead of describing the immanent Trinity, or God as God is in Himself, I discuss our experience of the Divine, or the economic Trinity.

This weekend is Whitsunday, or Pentecost. It is the celebration of the flooding of Creation by the Holy Spirit. The first reading is the story of the Lukan Pentecost, the one we are most familiar with. The Gospel is the Johannine Pentecost, immediately after the Resurrection. There are so many directions one may preach, so I left it up to the congregation. I asked them whether they wished to hear...

This episode begins with an introduction to the gospel, then a reading of the gospel, which was John 17: 1-11. My sermon follows, which was based on Acts 1: 6-14. We live on a sphere: There is no "up". How can Jesus "rise" into the clouds in the Ascension? Too often we see Ascension as a "clearing of the stage" so Jesus is out of the picture and the Holy Spirit is rea...

This episode begins with an introduction to the gospel, then a reading of the gospel, which was John 14: 15-21. My sermon follows, which was based on Acts 17: 22-31. I draw the differences between the pagan and the monotheistic universes. I quote David Simon, creator of The Wire, HP Lovecraft, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Please join us Sunday mornings at 9:30 am at Christ Episcopal Church at...

This sermon is based on John 14: 1-14. In it I provide an intuitive notion of our experience of the Divine. I start from the sense of mystery in our lives and the transcendence it points to.