So you may ask, “Why are we reading about the crucifixion of Jesus in our Gospel today, the week before Thanksgiving, a little over four weeks until Christmas? What does this crucifixion story have to do with where we find ourselves? Isn’t this more of a Gospel reading we hear on Good Friday or somewhere around Easter time? Why are we reading it in November?” I’d like to talk a little about that; why the church gives us this reading today…
Sally was scheduled to preach this morning but she has caught that cold that seems to be going around, so we agreed that it would be better for her to stay home today. So to use a baseball image, we’re calling in a lefty from the bullpen and I’m coming to the mound here. I can’t assure that I have my fastball, but I’ll do my best to get it over the plate. I’d like to offer a couple of reflections from this gospel reading from Luke. It’s not the most comforting words in the world. Luke is writing at a time, probably in the eighties, when a real tragedy had occurred. That was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, probably around 70 or 72 AD…
Happy Feast Day! Today is the day we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, which actually was Monday but in the Episcopal tradition we celebrate that feast the Sunday following unless the Feast Day falls on a Sunday. This Feast of All Saints: it’s a day where we remember the call we all have to be saints and remind ourselves that a saint is not just someone who has gone into eternal life, but we too are called to be saints. The idea is that you don’t become a saint by dying, you become a saint by living…
“Zacchaeus”… the name sounds funny to our ears. To the ears of his contemporaries, the name must have sounded not funny at all, but ironic, for its meaning in Hebrew was “innocent” or “pure.” Zacchaeus was considered anything but innocent or pure by his fellow Jews. Their name for him would more likely be “abuser” or “exploiter” for Zacchaeus worked for the hated Romans who had conquered and occupied the land of Palestine. He had won the tax-collecting franchise awarded by the Romans to enterprising traitors…
I would like to thank my daughter Rebecca for introducing me to a book and also literally introducing me to the author of the book. My daughter is a freshman at UNC Charlotte, and there was a book that was required reading for her course in “Global Connections.” The book is called The Blue Sweater. It was on the New York Times Best Seller List. It was written by Jacqueline Novogratz. It’s a story that she tells about her life. I’d like to tell you the story of the blue sweater…
Jeremiah 31:31-32a, 33, 34b
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with [my people] It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors….a covenant that they broke…. This is the covenant that I will make…. I will put my law within them,… I will write it on their hearts’ and I will be their God, and they will be my people….From the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
It seems to me, when we look back at early Christianity, those early decades of Christianity, as we look at the scriptures that tell us something about that early time, it is important for us to remember that there was no New Testament. There were the Hebrew scriptures, but these early Christians began to live their lives trying to follow what they believed Jesus was about…
According to my count, by the time we reach the benediction this morniing, we will have heard or said or sung the word “faith” nine times. Not to mention professing our faith what we believe as Christians in the words of the Nicene Creed. I actually expected the number to be larger. After all, we are people of faith. We are members of a faith community, seeking to live faithfully in this world. Regardless of whether we use the word faith, the language of faith fills our worship and forms our thinking and shapes our lives…
Good morning. I greet you on this the 18th Sunday after the Day of Pentecost. Today is also a momentous day in my own life, in the lives of many volunteers here at St. Paul’s, and, I hope, in the life of our entire parish and community as we celebrate the launch of St. Paul’s Center for Hope and Healing. The Center for Hope and Healing is a new mission and outreach of this parish which offers counseling, education, support and resources to persons at St. Paul’s as well as those within the greater community…
I’d like to begin by talking about vestments. This alb that I wear – I should tell you that I bought this alb eight years ago. I was in seminary and I had to have one for my first parish where I was an intern. Just to let you know how space-age these things are, it’s kind of held together by a white shoestring that goes across on the inside. About six weeks ago I noticed that my alb string was becoming dangerously frayed. I turned to Candy and I asked, “What happens when it breaks?” Well it broke this morning..