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Sermons (Page 52)

A New Creation Is Everything

Galatians 6:7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Spend any length of time in waiting rooms at the doctor’s office or the hairdresser and pick up the piles of magazines around you. You can easily come away with “5 new ways to find your passion in life and unlock your life’s true purpose.” Self-actualization is a multi-billion dollar industry in this country. But when I read today’s lesson from Galatians, I’m reminded that for Paul there’s only one thing that gives life real purpose, and it’s pretty much the opposite of self-actualization.

Everyday Heroes

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Luke 9:51-62
I’ve been thinking about superheroes lately. I think it helped over the last week that I got to spend some time with about 150 kids who came to our Vacation Bible School to learn about the heroes and the villains in the scriptures…

Going Deep in the Wake of Tragedy

Luke 8:26-39
This morning, we’re celebrating baptism… There’s a sentence after the children have been presented where people are asked to renounce things, and one of the questions is “Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?” and the answer is “I renounce them”… Throughout humanity, we’ve tried to deal with evil and darkness…

Judgment and Grace

Luke 7:36-8:3; 1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21a
Over the course of 18 years in ordained ministry, it’s remarkable how many times in the midst of adult education classes I’ve heard people say that they much prefer the New Testament to the Old Testament, because the Old Testament God is a God of punishment and vengeance, they say, where the New Testament God is a God of forgiveness and love…

Celebrating Our Parish Family

Luke 7:11-17
Today is Picnic Sunday. You don’t find that in the prayer book… It’s a good time in the middle of the year to be together in fellowship and delight in who we are, who we’ve been, and who we can be. There’s so much in the life of this parish that happens that we don’t all see or experience, and yet we’re a part of it.

Beyond Boundaries

Luke 7:1-10 At first glance, this gospel reading sounds like a healing story… Jesus healed someone… We think that’s the end of the story, but I think on a deeper level, there’s a lot we can hear from this reading besides a healing story. This really in many ways is a story of Jesus breaking down some of the barriers of his tradition.

Bishop’s Visit on Trinity Sunday

John 16:12-15
What a joy it is to be with you at St. Paul’s Cary… Today is Trinity Sunday, the only day in the church year that celebrates a doctrine rather than an event in the drama of God’s reaching out to humankind… It was the experience of Christians in the first centuries of the church’s life that led to the creedal formularies of Trinitarian faith. As Christians listened to the spirit-filled stories of Jesus and experienced the power of faith in action, their conclusion was that God is not static but an eternal expression of love as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a dynamic dance that touches all humankind.

To Do Something

John 17:20-26, Sunday after the Feast of Ascension
I’d like to share a quote with you this morning: “One cannot level one’s moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are just too many of them. But you can do something, and the difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything.” That’s a quote by someone I’d like to share a few thoughts about this morning. It’s the quote of a Jesuit priest who was very active, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s. His name was Father Dan Berrigan…

Hidden Worlds

John 5:1-9
So it arrived in my inbox. I tried to ignore it because it looked like spam… I had my finger on the delete key, until I glanced at the subject, and it said “Truck Stop Chaplain Wanted.”