Posts

Three times the love

 Sermon for Easter III, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: John 21:1-19 I love you all. I really do. This may be a surprise to some who I don’t know very well, and that is because love occurs in the context of a relationship. I have good relationships with many people here, but with some others I have more of a passing relationship. But I love you just the same. There is the question of what do I mean by expressing love for all of you? Do I feel the same way about everyone? That is the issue we face with the gospel reading this morning, specifically toward the end where Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” The problem with the English language is that we have few words for love: adore, love, affection, fondness, and friendship, and they don’t exactly fit the Greek words for love that Jesus and Peter use. We have to explain what we mean when we say “I love you” to someone. Those Greek words of love used in the reading are agapé, meaning an unco...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fear and hesitancy on Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday sermon, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Back in early October, I went to New Orleans on a short business trip. Meetings were to start on  Monday morning, so I flew out Sunday late morning, after participating in the book study here. Keep in mind that I went straight to the airport from here, so I was wearing my clerical collar. I was a bit self-conscious, and very aware of how I might appear to others. While waiting at the gate in Louisville’s airport, I watched a woman struggle with folding up a large stroller while she tried to hold on to her toddler. Eventually, I got up and asked if she needed help, and then walked over to help her. She was slightly embarrassed, but we got her stroller packed for the flight. I reflected on this and realized that had I not been wearing my collar, I might not have gotten up to help. Why was that? Arriving in New Orleans, my seatmate for that flight wrestled her suitcase from the overhead bin as the passeng...
Post a Comment
Read more

What is better, indulgence or austerity?

 Sermon for Lent 5, 2025, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY. Text: John 12:1-8 On my birthday in 2014, I bought a new car. My 2003 Toyota Corolla was beginning to look worn, and my son Michael was going to start driving lessons soon so the car could be his to drive. I had looked at several new cars and the one I settled on was a Toyota Camry. I had three trim packages to consider, and my wife Kim nudged me toward the top package. It felt unnecessary and extravagant to have a sunroof, heated seats, a backup camera, and motion detectors. Keep in mind that I thought power windows were a luxury. “It’s time to indulge yourself. We can afford it,” she said. The car was an indulgence, but it got me to where I needed to go in comfort: to see my daughter in New York, to funerals, to my ordination, and it faithfully took me to Nashville and back multiple times as I cared for my mother in the last three months of her life. Yes, I could have done all of that in a cheaper...
Post a Comment
Read more

Language of the Book of Common Prayer

 Parish newsletter item. Just last Sunday as I write this, and a few weeks ago as you read this, we stumbled through the Rite 1 Eucharist [in the first Sunday of Lent]. I say stumbled because there were hitches in the service from the language it was written in. We don’t usually use this rite, but for those of us who are of a certain age, it was familiar because we grew up with a similar sounding rite in the 1928 prayer book. The language used in both the current and previous prayer books comes from Elizabethan English, spoken and written in the mid-1500s to the mid-1600s. It is the same language used by Shakespeare, and what the King James Version of the Bible was written in. The language further evolved into the more modern form that our Declaration of Independence was written about 200 years later. Because we pray in a modernized version of very early Modern English, it can be a challenge to understand what exactly we are saying. The tone of the early Eucharistic services has...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lenten grace: a start, not a fast

 Sermon for Lent II, 2025, delivered at St. Paul's, Louisville, KY Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1 , Luke 13:31-35 Every now and then in scripture, we hear the human side of Jesus, and we hear it this morning as the Pharisees warn Jesus about King Herod. I can just hear Jesus say “You want a piece of me? I’m here for another three days, so let’s go!” It’s a dare for Herod to do something about the disruption in the status quo that Jesus has been making. That might seem a reckless thing to say to a king, but this is the Son of God speaking. It’s an interesting contrast between earthly and heavenly power and authority, where Herod may have physical power over Jesus, but in the end, Jesus has an unearthly power. Jesus uses interesting metaphors involving foxes and hens to talk about where prophets die and who might kill them, mostly in the holy city of Jerusalem. There could be a joke in there somewhere about the fox watching the hen house, except that in this case, Jesus as the hen house ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Transformations and morals background

 Parish newsletter article as background for this sermon .  For this month’s article, I am focusing on a secular topic rather than share a theological or spiritual perspective. With Lent approaching, there are some things around our view of morality that we need to think about. In my March 2 nd sermon, I will mention/have mentioned a book called The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Dr. Haidt is a moral psychologist who has studied and developed theories on what morals are, what they mean, and how we adopt or change them. This was a book that Father Andrew started to read last fall and recommended it to me, and we read it at the same time. It is a very good introduction to morality based on research and it takes attentive reading to capture everything in it. Most of the moral concepts have Judeo-Christian roots, so they were familiar to me and easily applicable to moral teaching in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. This book has added another dimension to my understanding...
Post a Comment
Read more

Transformations and morals

Sermon for Epiphany VII, 2025, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Exodus 34:29-35 , Luke 9:28-43a In memory of Mildred, who read my sermons. This is the last Sunday in Epiphany, a season that is longer this year than we’re used to, and a lot has happened during it. Epiphany starts with the visit of the three wise men, or Jesus’ baptism, which we read this year, and that was two months ago, so it is not part of the “feel” of the church or the service this morning. But, here we are, having heard who Jesus is revealed to us through his baptism, his first sign at the wedding in Cana, reading from Isaiah in his synagogue, Simeon’s prayer of release from life at the sight of the infant Messiah, and now the revelation of Jesus’ identity in the glory of God and in the company of Moses and Elijah. Every week, we have heard Jesus being revealed as the Son of God in a different way, all signs that the kingdom of God is near. And now, in this scene of unearthly tran...
Post a Comment
Read more