Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Sermon for Advent I, 2025, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Isaiah 2:1-5 , Matthew 24:36-44 On September 23rd, or the 24th of this year, the Rapture was predicted to happen, according to a South African  preacher. We’re all still here, so it didn’t happen. But this event has ties to this morning’s gospel reading because of the imagery of two people working side-by-side and one of them being taken. This raises a question: why are we reading an apocalyptic passage on the first Sunday in Advent, the first day of a new Church year? It really doesn’t fit the season of anticipation and joy at the birth of Jesus, any more than Halloween skeletons fit with decorating for  Christmas. That's not to say that the reading is relevant. It is relevant because it call on us to prepare. But what are  we preparing for, and how?   The Rapture was the creation of the fervent mind of John Nelson Darby in the 1830s as part of his development of  Dispe...

Sermon for Pentecost XXII, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Luke 20:27-38 We are all familiar with the very first verse of the Bible, you know, the one that says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…” It’s been in every Bible we’ve ever opened, but  there’s one small problem with that wording and our belief based on it, because that is not exactly what the original Hebrew says. The very first Hebrew word in Genesis is “Bere’sheet,” which indicates an ongoing action. Translating the Hebrew closely, the first sentence of Genesis would read in English, “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep…” This creates a problem for us because it changes a possible understanding of the story of Creation. Where we might read “In the beginning…” to say God created the Earth out of no...