Worship. Serve. Grow.

Sermons (Page 38)

Extravagance of Grace

The Rev. Carr Holland discusses the Wedding at Cana and grace (John 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11): “I had this image, how some go through life and their days, perceiving they have a pound of sugar or kindness or goodness, some but a cup, and others a teaspoon. And we deal with each other from that perception.”

The Baptism that Turns your Life Upside Down

(Luke 3:15-17, 21-22) A young girl named Joanne got her first job at the tender age of nine. She and her sister cleaned a little Anglican church down the street from their home in England. … She was baptised on July 31, 1976, her eleventh birthday, sprinkled at the font of St. Luke’s Church. She would go on the share her birthday with the main character of a book she would later write. Joanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, gave birth to the boy who lived, Harry Potter….

The Word Made Flesh

The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista discusses Luke 1:39-45(46-55) and the power of words: “It is into this world, full of hurtful, painful, broken words, that the Word made flesh decided to enter one fateful day long ago. And it is this world, full of our pain and our loss, that the Word made flesh is preparing to enter even now.”

We Make Ourselves Ready (Advent 3)

The Rev. Candy Snively reflects on Luke 3:7-18 and Philippians 4:4-7: “So anyone feeling stressed these days? ‘Tis the season of total busyness when there are just not enough hours in your day to get everything accomplished, and there’s nothing to put you in the Christmas spirit quite like a good lecture from John the Baptist: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ Somehow I don’t think you’d find that sentiment on a Hallmark card. No where does the difference between John the Baptist and Jesus stand out so clearly.”

What is Truth?

On the Feast of Christ the King, the Rev. Carr Holland reflects on the complexity of truth (John 18:33-37): “In the airways these days, there are a lot of floating opinions, and they present themselves as fact or truth. But seldom are they what they pretend to be. We even create alternate facts if we don’t like the facts at hand. We consider mere opinions as if they are the sum of the truth. They simplify what is complex, and we wonder why we are not satisfied — perhaps it is because we forget to look at the relationships that we hold with others and to God as the place where truth will be revealed.”

The End of Things

The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista considers what it means to find hope in the apocalypse (Mark 13:1-8): “One of the most popular stops in Israel is a fortress named Masada. It is high up on the Judean desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. In the first century BC, Herod the Great built himself a palace there on a mesa, fortified its walls and made it nearly impenetrable. And yet for all its fortification, its vast food store houses, its complex aqueduct system and ingenious engineering, it is the location of a major defeat, the last stand of a host of Jewish rebels, finally fed up with imperial Roman rule.”