Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Sermon for Christmas I, 2025, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Matthew 2:13-18   A Merry Christmas to you all. I think for most of us, we had a good Christmas. We celebrated with family and friends, or had a quiet day, or maybe had to work and celebrated in another way. I have to think of my friend who is having her first Christmas without her mother and is having a hard time this season. Hearing her talk about it brings the day or two of celebration to a halt and the reality of life returns, but it doesn’t bother me. It is a reminder to me that my experience of Christmas is not shared by everyone, and our gospel reading this morning reflects this as well. Sometime after Jesus is born, Joseph and his family are warned by God to flee to Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous search to kill Jesus. We’re reading this just three days after Christmas, and tomorrow is the feast of the Holy Innocents, a commemoration of the death of all the children in and around ...

Sermon for Advent IV, 2025, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Isaiah 7:10-16 , Matthew 1:18-25 The Old Testament and gospel readings this morning touch on a chapter of the book we’ve been discussing in the Sunday morning study group, that is, “The Bible Says So” by Dan McClellan. There’s a connection between the passages in Isaiah and Matthew that involves Mary and can dramatically change how we perceive her, but that’s not the focus this morning. Mary figures in another way in both passages. Matthew’s Gospel was written by a Jewish author for other Jews to show them that Jesus was the Messiah that they had been waiting for, and the gospel reading is among the first of many examples we come across. This may seem like an academic exercise, but it is important to understand the foundation that our faith, our beliefs, and the words that we pray every Sunday are built on. We start with the story of Ahaz, the king of Judah, and a historical event mentioned i...