Sermons from St. John the Divine

In both Baptism and at the Table, we practice the way of the cross, the way of following Jesus. When we come here and eat this bread and drink this wine, we become the body of the one who gave himself up as a servant of all people. So, instead of continuing to live by the ways of the world, the buying of security for ourselves, at the expense of others, much like the Gentile rulers who lord their...

Jesus taught his disciples the nature of his messianic mission three times as mission of death and resurrection. Not only was this path applied to him but also to the individual disciple he called, the community he built, and the leaders he developed.

The universal struggle we all have is allowing good things to become ultimate, even as know the only true ultimate thing about our purpose in life is to give ourselves entirely over to Christ Jesus.

Having treasure in heaven is like having money in the bank. You don’t spend money in the bank. You have money in the bank to spend to live. Our treasure in heaven is to use in this life such that the richness of heaven intersects with our daily lives.

So often we leave out the setting on Jesus’s teaching on divorce. When you understand he’s back at the Jordan River where John the Baptist took on Herod Antipas and Herodias, his wife, who divorced to marry Herod, Jesus’s teaching begins to make much better sense. Jesus, after all, is a forgiving, restorative savior.

Marriage can be a foretaste of heaven on earth or it can be a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. There are divine resources available to our marriages that will keep them from feeling like a miserable prison. The Lord purposes that your marriage will be a source of tremendous freedom, abundant blessing, mutual joy, and life.

God sees us and knows what we are dealing with. We can trust that he will meet us where we are and give us what we need to clear the way for our fellow weak humans, to find and experience the life and love of Christ.

The key question in the Book of Esther revolves around living in society as a religious minority with wisdom and courage. Could there be a better question for us to engage today?

Jesus calls his disciples to a transformational mission. The challenge for them was to capture the vision, scope, and heart of his plan. They often missed it. Let us not miss the life-changing mission that God has for us right under our noses if we will only have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.

When we connect to the most basic place of our own reality, we will be able to welcome the basic humanity of those we see as less. Once we see the truth that we are the least of these, we can connect with the least-ness of the other. It’s as if we can say, “The human in me, sees the human in you, and we can meet there.”

I wonder if deep down, people out there intuit that the stories they have been told or taught about themselves have been disrupted or have failed to fill the void that only Christ can fill… What would it be like if others looked to us as the church and wondered what we had that gave us such peace, such joy, such love despite the times?

Calling Jesus “Messiah” does not mean Peter understands him to be divine or the 2nd person of the Trinity. Peter sees him as the successor to David—his final heir, the true king of Israel. The disciples are not expecting a divine redeemer, so Jesus begins a new teaching, giving the Messiah a "face-lift." God’s kingdom has more to do with the radical defeat of deep-rooted evil than with the destruc...

Jesus invites us to be open to the work of the Father, even when it means getting a little too close for comfort.

The healing of the Syrophoenician Woman’s daughter comes directly after Jesus’ teaching on clean and unclean. It is not just another healing but a political incident. The old barriers and taboos are crumbling between people. The second healing references the prophecy of Isaiah 35:5-6: blind eyes will be opened, deaf ears will be unstopped, and silent tongues will start to sing. To quote N. T. Wrig...

It is easy to mistake having your religious act together for spiritual maturity. The heart of true religion is a matter of the heart. The Lord came to make the unclean clean from the inside out. May his heart be ours.

Jesus saw in the fault-finding Pharisee commission a group of hypocrites, who substituted their traditions for the authority of Scripture. By focusing on outward appearances, they were avoiding the deeper challenge of the gospel. We too can fall into this trap when we rally around dirt rather than love.

We are in a spiritual battle as God is using us as the Christian church to reconcile the world to himself and liberate the people of this world from the bondage to sin and Satan. Put on the full armor of God!

Congregations that experience revival, renewal, or revitalization begin by praying for them.

Christian singing is not natural, but supernatural singing that comes from the heart as we are filled with the Spirit. Singing to God and to one another can even heal an aching soul. Singing makes us not only vulnerable to God but to one another as well. It increases intimacy and grows us in Christlikeness.

God’s plan for redemption includes the creation of a new community, the Church. Thus the distinctive witness of the Church, the alluring and compelling demonstration of God’s gracious gift in Christ for the sake of the world, is intrinsically linked to the Body of Christ manifesting a community life radically different from the world; a kingdom outpost concretely manifesting God's transforming lov...

Paul understands a fundamental principle: the gospel is far more than a principle, far more than a new religious truth. The gospel can never be truly known apart from people who live it, who are for others and for the world the imitation of Jesus.

Our deep need is to feel connection, and that need is only truly met in God. As a living growing body of Christ on this earth we experience God’s love and unity through the difficult and messy relationships within our spiritual family.

Our deep need is to feel connection, and that need is only truly met in God. As a living growing body of Christ on this earth, we experience God’s love and unity through the difficult and messy relationships within our spiritual family.

Today, we pray for an infilling of the Holy Spirit that Christ may take up residence in our hearts, that our inner being may be fully alive, deeply animated, set on fire for all that is… and all that is to come.