Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Sermon for Pentecost XXII, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Job 38:1-7, 34-41 ; Mark 10:35-45 Early in 1991, I made a phone call to the office of the Diocese of Indianapolis. I knew that there was a meeting coming up for people in discernment in the Diocese, and I had been meeting with a small committee in my parish in Bloomington, working on my discernment. I asked where the meeting would be, and the person on the other end said that they would get back to me. A few minutes later, I got a call from my Rector saying that I would not be attending the meeting or moving forward in the process toward the priesthood. I was crushed, but I figured out later that I was asking what James and John were asking Jesus: to be placed in a position of authority because they wanted to be there, or because they felt they were qualified. I had the same attitude of being qualified, and I was looking for a career right out of college. Jesus answered me, John, and James by

Newsletter item published September 27, 2024 This has been an unusual election season by any measure. A lot of rhetoric from and posturing by candidates for elected offices has been carried by the media. We have been looking for, and sometimes heard some signs of what the two presidential candidates will do if elected, and the same is true for congressional, state, or local races. However, if we look beyond all of what we have been exposed to in the campaigns, we find a deeper level of discussion about who we are and who we want to be as a nation, and as an American society. The campaigns and debates talk about specific ideas that fall into categories of good or bad, or competing postures of belief or apostasy, or claims of a coming triumph or apocalypse. It is not surprising that we fall back on our faith to make sense of what we hear and talk about, and defend our beliefs from people who tell us that we are gravely mistaken in who we agree with and support.  There are two opposin