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Homilies (Page 63)

The Light of Christ

There’s a lot of context for today. First of all today is the biggest single outreach day of St. Paul’s in our entire calendar year. Today with the gifts that you’ve brought and the gifts that were brought at the earlier service and the gifts that were brought all last week from people who couldn’t be here today, over 480 tags were taken off of the St. Nicholas Tree. I can’t imagine all the thousands of dollars that 480 tags, each one representing sometimes more than one gift or a really large gift, the amount of money that that is…

The Cosmic Christ

I’ve sometimes wondered if this season of Advent comes at the wrong time: just before Christmas. Now, you may say to me, “but isn’t that what Advent is for, leading up to Christmas?” Let me answer that in kind of a non-dualistic way: yes and no. I think we oftentimes see Advent as a time we walk through to lead us to the celebration of the birth of Jesus. We approach it almost as a sort of sentimental journey…

Keep Awake

Since this is the first time we’re gathering after Thanksgiving, may I offer this prayer: O God, when I have food help me to remember the hungry. When I have work help me to remember the jobless. When I have a home help me to remember those who have no home at all. When I am without pain help me remember those who suffer…

The Kingdom

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. It’s the final Sunday of our church calendar year. Next sunday will be the beginning of a new church calendar year, with the first Sunday of Advent. Our calendar is a little bit different than the calendar we live in our day-to-day lives, but today is the final Sunday. And it’s called the Feast of Christ the King. You could say to yourself, if there’s a Christ the King, there must be a kingdom…

Judgment

In J.K. Rowling’s first book called The Sorcerer’s Stone the hero of the story, Harry Potter, at the age of eleven and in his first year of boarding school finds himself, by accident, in a nearly empty room with a 7-foot free-standing mirror. He is hiding from a professor and the school janitor so he has to lay low for a few minutes…

Connection with Others

Today we celebrate All Saints Day. We celebrate the baptisms of Morgan Oliver, of Margaret Abigail, and of Jackson Tyler. Today is a very, very special day in the life of the church. Many of you may have heard last week that my grandfather John Kilbourn passed away on October 25. On that Thursday I had the opportunity to fly to Florida to be with my grandmother…

The Seat of Moses

Matt. 23:1-12
I’m taken with the Gospel reading, these words that Jesus shares with his disciples. He’s giving some reflections on the leaders of the Jewish tradition at that time. I think it’s important to remember that when we look at the scriptures, particularly the New Testament, we see Jesus engaged with Judaism and with Jewish leaders and where he critiques. He’s not criticizing Judaism; Judaism is really a prototype for all religion…

Relationship with God

Have I ever told you how much I love New York City? I love the teasing that goes on here at St. Paul’s about the various places we’re from and have traveled in our lives. My being a New Yorker is part of that. I love the kind of bantering we do, especially my Boston friends, Red Sox fans. You know the difference betwen Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park? You can get a hot dog at Yankee Stadium in October…

Render Unto God

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” This saying of Jesus from today’s Gospel reading is so familiar to some of us that no matter how it is read we tend to hear it in the King James version: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are Gods…”