Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Sermon for Pentecost XXVI, Delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY, 8 am service Text: Mark 13:1-8 “My what big buildings there are here!” That was me, repeating what a disciple said to Jesus, but I was in New York City. There are tall buildings there, some really tall, so I can imagine the disciple’s reaction in Jerusalem. Instead of steel and glass, the buildings and the Temple in ancient Jerusalem were made of large cut stones, larger than the stones that houses back in Galilee were made of. And then Jesus throws water on the disciple’s wonder by saying something outrageous, that all of the buildings would be thrown down with nothing but rubble to remain. That alone could be the point of this morning’s passage, but these comments come immediately after Jesus calls attention to the widow and her meager contribution to the temple treasury. When you read this passage with the widow in mind, the context changes to one of destruction of gifts, and the possibility tha...

Sermon for Pentecost XXV,2024, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Mark 12:38-44 When I was growing up, my parish had a Lenten tradition of giving out cardboard UTO mite boxes to the children in the parish. We would then drop coins into the box during Lent, and on Easter we would bring them back, and up to a large open plywood cross in the front of the sanctuary. The cross would then be filled with the mite boxes. More recently, I have understood the significance of those boxes full of coins, inspired by the Gospel reading of the widow and her two copper coins. There could be a whole other sermon about filling a cross with coins for another time. Suffice it to say that each penny I put in was a sacrifice of sorts, particularly since I was way too young to work, and my parents hadn’t started giving me an allowance. The word mite descended from German, to mean something small, and in Flemish refers to a thin copper coin, so the concept is of something smal...