Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Advent 1 sermon, delivered November 28, 2021 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Luke 21:25-36 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Happy New Year! No, I haven’t gone off of the deep end, and we haven’t skipped over Christmas to New Year’s Eve. Today is the Church’s new years day, the first Sunday of Advent and the first Sunday of Year C Bible readings, for those keeping track. It means that we finish reading the Gospel of Mark and begin to read the Gospel of Luke for the coming year. It also means that we have left the Ordinary Time of the church calendar and entered into a long arc of preparing for the presence of Christ in our lives, from his birth to his rebirth. We have changed the green hangings of Pentecost to the blue ones of Advent, represent...

 Pentecost 24, 2021 sermon delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Mark 12:38-44 The Widow’s Mite, the name of the reading we heard in this morning’s gospel, is a familiar story because it comes up in the fall when stewardship campaigns are going on. We hear about how a poor widow gave everything she had to the Temple treasury box, and how this is an example of faithful giving. The story can certainly be interpreted that way and be true, that we give to the church based on needs rather than on what we are willing to give. But there’s another side to this story that is not explored very often, one that examines the circumstances around the widow’s giving and the implications that has for her, and for us. To provide context to the widow’s donation to the Temple treasury, we have to understand that the society she lived in was paternalistic and conforming, that is, a person’s life was determined in large part by the norms and customs of the larger society they lived i...