Sermons from Saint John’s

An Emerson College poll last year revealed a surprising paradox about news consumption in America: social media is the least-widely-trusted and most-widely-used source for information about the news. More than half of Americans reported that they put “not much trust” or “no trust at all” in the information they received from social media sites; even so, nearly 40% said that social media or YouTube...

This story of “The Binding of Isaac” is one of the most beautifully written stories in human history, about one of the most horrifying acts any of us could imagine. It raises some challenging questions for those of us who receive it as Holy Scripture. What kind of man would respond to a vision like this so immediately, with so few questions? Who is the God who would test someone in this way? Part...

I generally avoid making a big deal out of certain days that are widely celebrated in the world around us but aren’t Christian “holy days.” I don’t give a “Mother’s Day sermon.” There are no special prayers for Father’s Day. And that’s really because, while there are many people celebrating these days, many people find them hard; I’ve known more than a few people who avoid going to church on Mothe...

You’ve probably heard the saying, “We make plans, and God laughs.” I don’t always love this phrase. It does a good job of expressing the unpredictability of a world in which our best-laid plans so often go awry. But I think it makes God sound a little too mean-spirited. A few years ago, for example, I was training to run in the Bunker Hill Day road race. I was all ready to prove once and for all t...

There’s a story told by the Irish writer Frank O’Connor that comes from his childhood wandering through the countryside outside Cork in southern Ireland. If you recognize it, it’s probably because it was popularized by President John F. Kennedy, who re-told it in speeches several times. In his autobiography An Only Child, O’Connor writes, “When as kids we came to an orchard wall that seemed too hi...

This time of year is a season of goodbyes. At colleges around the country, graduating students are saying goodbye to their campuses and professors, to roommates and friends, and maybe even to education itself—although hopefully not to learning. In local schools, teachers are getting ready to say goodbye to this year’s class of students, and students are saying goodbye to friends as they scatter to...

People sometimes celebrate Pentecost as “the birthday of the Church,” with red balloons and a birthday cake at Coffee Hour. But I like to think of it as an anniversary, instead, because what begins at Pentecost is more like a marriage than a birth. What begins at Pentecost, or what begins in a wedding ceremony, is not a new individual’s life, but a new form of common life; a way of being together...

Imagine being one of Jesus’ disciples on that first Ascension Day, two thousand years ago. The last six weeks have been pretty crazy. You’d first come down to the city of Jerusalem for Passover with a group of friends who’d spent the last year following this remarkable man named Jesus as he traveled around Galilee. You’d heard him preaching about the coming of what he called the kingdom of God. Yo...

Nautical enthusiasts and dictionary editors alike have argued for centuries about the distinction between a ship and a boat. Everyone agrees that ships are big and boats are small; as Merriam-Webster puts it, “You can put a boat onto a ship, but you can’t put a ship onto a boat.”[1] What’s less clear is the exact nature of the distinction. Is a ship just a boat of a certain size? Or is a ship what...

Back in high school, when I ran cross-country and track, I’d often find myself lost with my friends somewhere in the Middlesex Fells. There were a few kids on the team who lived near the woods, and they could usually find their way around. Personally, I have a terrible sense of direction, and so it wasn’t that uncommon for me to get turned around, and come out half a mile further down South Border...

Last Sunday after church, Nancy and I met with four of the kids for a class about communion. One of them is preparing for her first communion a little later this spring, one of them maybe next year; two of them were older, and joined us to lend their wisdom and eat snacks. But we were all there to talk about what exactly it is we do on Sunday mornings, and why. I showed them how we set the table a...

Now, poor Thomas got stuck with the label of “Doubting Thomas” for the rest of time. But that’s not entirely fair. When Thomas gets arrives with his bags full of Pringles, all he asks is to see what the other disciples have already seen. They hear the good news of the Resurrection from Mary Magdalene, and that same day they see Jesus and it confirms what they’ve been told. Thomas hears the good ne...

The story of Easter morning is the story of an empty tomb. After Jesus’ death on Friday afternoon, the two Marys, his most faithful disciples, don’t have time to prepare Jesus’ body for burial before the Sabbath begins. They wait anxiously throughout the day of Sabbath rest, mourning the loss of their friend. After the Sabbath is over, it’s too dark to see inside the tomb, and so they spend the ni...

Whether we’re leading processions through our churches, or hanging jewelry around our necks, coming up with a symbol to put on signs and flags or offering a blessing, we Christians don’t tend to choose the empty tomb or the washing of feet, Lazarus raised from the dead or the Sermon on the Mount. No; we choose the Cross, because the story of the Crucifixion is so central to us that it has become t...

In a Lenten devotional published this year, Brother Luke of the Society of St. John the Evangelist reflects on one of the verses in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) He notes the humility and meekness of Jesus in the stories we hear this week: “Jesus showed love and leadership by riding a donkey, not a stallion,” he notes, “and by washing feet”...

I have to admit that I find some parts of this story unsatisfying. Jesus speaks to the disciples in a confusing and misleading way, telling them at first that “this illness does not lead to death,” (John 11:4) only to act like they’re slow on the uptake moments later when he tells them metaphorically that Lazarus is “sleeping,” and then “plainly,” that  “Lazarus is dead.” (11:11, 14) Jesus wa...

Imagine what a different story this would be if the people in it simply saw what was happening in front of them, and responded. The disciples would ask what Jesus was going to do for the man, rather than ask for a judgment on what the man or his parents must have done . The neighbors would celebrate with him, rather than denying who he was. The Pharisees might wonder what it meant for a man to be...

“After an accident on a winding road,” the synopsis for a 1997 film begins, “four teens make the fatal mistake of dumping their victim’s body into the sea. But exactly one year later, a mysterious fisherman begins stalking the friends.” This horror film was called I Know What You Did Last Summer, and it was such a success that the studio produced a sequel the next year, entitled (almost inevitably...

I’ve heard of buildings being named after people, schools named after people, and even cities named after people; but I really have to ask: what do you have to do to get a whole God named after you? Seriously. Someone asks, “Which god should we praise?” and of all the choices for a name by which to identify God—the Holy Trinity; the Creator of the heavens and the earth; the God who raised Jesus fr...

Imagine that Jesus Christ came back to earth, Ivan Karamazov says to his brother Alyosha, in Dostoevsky’s great novel The Brothers Karamazov. Imagine that Christ returned in 16th century Spain. He’s heard the prayers of his people for fifteen hundred years, and he’s finally come to help, and the people are amazed. Wherever he goes, joy fills their hearts. People who are sick are healed. A girl ris...

Our preparations for Ash Wednesday really begin on Palm Sunday, when we wave green fronds and leafy branches and sing the ancient song of longing and hope for the arrival of the Messiah: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord—Hosanna in the highest!” “Hosanna,” we say on Palm Sunday, which means in Aramaic: “Save us!” and we certainly need saving. The palms symbolize the hope of salvatio...

“Attention” is a funny word. It’s an abstract noun, but we use it all the time. Philosophers and scientists struggle to define it precisely, but the youngest children are expected to know what it means. It’s a noun that’s formed from a verb (“attend”), but we hardly ever the verb “attend” in English when we’re talking about “attention.” Instead we introduce all sorts of helping verbs. In other wor...

Lent begins in just ten days. And so, it’s around this time that some people begin to think or talk about fasting: about what they’ll “give up” for Lent, or perhaps what they’ll take on instead. You might hear people planning to fast from alcohol, or chocolate; from social media, or from coffee. You might hear people planning to take on a new practice or prayer or journaling, of serving the commun...

“Blessed are those”— a modern adaptation of the Beatitudes might begin—“who attend the Annual Parish Meeting.” Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Coffee Hour, for they will be filled. Blessed are the bakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who stare at budget spreadsheets for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people e...

At the heart of Paul’s mission is the paradoxical “message about the cross”: the claim that even though the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed did not come about in any visible way, even though Jesus was subject to the most painful and humiliating death the Roman Empire could devise, he was nevertheless the Messiah, the Anointed One who would set God’s people free. The message about the cross is...