Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Lent IV sermon delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Early on in my relationship with my wife, we lived off of her pay for being a teaching assistant at IU. It covered the rent of a small apartment, the phone, and food, but not much else. At one point, we had an unexpected expense and we were going to be short of money for the month. I had just graduated and had not yet found a job, and had not put effort into finding one that reflected my commitment to us as a team. I reluctantly called my grandparents, who had very conservative ideas about personal finance and personal responsibility, having survived the Great Depression as young adults with two children. I got a lecture from them about my responsibility and financial decisions, instead of compassion and help. My father called me a little while later, gently offering to send money and saying that he understood the difficulties we were facing as a couple. I realized that I couldn’t have

 Sermon delivered on Lent I, 2022, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Texts: Psalm 91 , Luke 4:1-13 Since the pandemic started, both my wife and I have been working from home. We have our morning routines, and hers is to frequently make toast with a fried egg on top for breakfast. When I come up from my office in our basement for a break, I walk into the wonderful smell of toasted bread. I am so tempted to make my own slice of toast with raspberry jam or orange marmalade on it, but I can’t. I have to be careful about how many carbs I eat, and I can’t have toast or jam. Being Lent, it wouldn’t do me any good to give up something that I shouldn’t have anyway. We all know well the tradition of Lent where we “fast” like Jesus did for forty days by denying ourselves something we like, or rely on, or is a regular part of our lives. We know well the tradition of self-examination, said aloud in the Ash Wednesday prayers. And we know well the confession of our sins, again from A