Words of the watcher and the sentinel
Sermon for Pentecost XV, 2026, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Ezekiel 33:7-11 , Matthew 18:15-20 During my high school years, I would swim in the pool in our school building after classes. Afterward, I would leave the building, cross the street, and take a city bus home with my hair still wet. Mistake number one. In the winter, I would do the same, and my hair would freeze until I got on the bus. Mistake number two. Given my "mistakes," I am quite sure that someone said to me, “You’re going to catch your death a cold,” implying that being outside with wet hair, in the cold no less, was going to cause me to have a possibly fatal respiratory infection. And this was said to me with great certainty. I was not convinced then, and I am even less convinced now because I subscribe to the germ theory of such illnesses. But it was nonetheless a warning to me that if I continued in my mistaken ways, I was going to suffer for them. Ezekiel shares some ...