Rotten Apple Seeds

Here is today's sermon, Proper 19, Year A, September 17, 2023. It is based on Exodus 14:19-31, the Crossing of the Red Sea and Matthew 18:21-35, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. I show that forgiveness is like crossing the Red Sea in an escape from bondage in Egypt in that refusal to forgive and holding resentments is a form of self imposed bondage. The Sea is a metaphor of Creation as...

Here is today's sermon, Proper 18, Year A, September 10, 2023. It is based on Romans 13 : 8, "Owe no debt to another except love". I discuss how love has become transactional, even contractual. Most of our relationships and socializing is now based on contract and transaction. In the Church, we are taught to offer the gift of forgiveness which is based on the gift of honesty to each...

Here is today's sermon, Proper 17, Year A, September 3, 2023. It is based on the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, Exodus 3:1-15. I discuss why the name of the Lord is Holy and Awesome, using a story from Arthur C. Clarke, then show where the names of the characters in the Hebrew Scriptures come from. i explain why the name, Jesus, or Emmanuel, was so important. I suggest in prayer that we e...

Here is today's sermon, Proper 16, Year A, August 27, 2023. It is based on Matthew 16:13-20, "Who do you say that I Am?" In it I describe what the term, Messiah, would have meant to Peter and the disciples in the time of Christ. From there I discuss how I have encountered Jesus. I make the point that Jesus is fully Divine, a High Christology, emphasizing His power, ability to work mi...

Here is today's sermon, Transfiguration Sunday, Year A, August 6, 2023. It is based on the account of the Transfiguration in Luke 9; 28- 36. I begin to describe the Transfiguration as a glimpse of the Beatific Vision described by Aquinas and Dante, and also in a movie with Nicholas Cage (yes, Nicholas Cage!). From there, I pivot from being redeemed by seeing the right thing to being redeemed b...

Here is today's sermon, Proper 12, Year A, July 30, 2023. It is based on Matthew 13:31-33,44-52, the parables describing the Kingdom of God. I begin with a history of the term, Kingdom of God, in the history of Israel, and then turn to what it may mean for us today. I suggest that it means to encounter the Divine in our gratitude for what we have as gifts.

Here is today's sermon, Proper 11, Year A, July 23, 2023. It is based on the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52). In it I make the point that being a weed is simply being a plant that is undesirable. In our world, our nation, and in our congregations, we are encountering a trend to purge ourselves of undesirables. Mose pleas for diversity or toleration are dismissed as...

Here is today's sermon for Proper 10, Year A, July 16, 2023. It is based on the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, Matthew 13:1-9,18-23. In it is give an account how each of us in our own seasons of life, assume the place of the thorns, the birds which devour the seeds, the poor soil, and the rocky soil. But we also take on the good soil at other times in our lives and that's OK. It all wo...

Here is today's sermon, Proper 9, Year A, July 9, 2023. It is based on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will refresh you. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light". Instead of seeing our burdens as some sort of imposition from a Divinity which is alien and withdrawn from us far away, I use the image of the yoke to show that Jesus is prese...

Here is today's sermon, Proper 8, Year A, July 2, 2023. It is based on the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. I imagine that, instead of an angel telling Abraham that the sacrifice is not necessary, rather he goes ahead with the sacrifice. In his grief and reflection after the event, he is given the opportunity to grieve not only for his son, and his faith in the unique G...

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.