Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Sermon for Pentecost XVIII, 2026, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Matthew 21:23-32 If you have raised children, or remember your own childhood, part of this morning’s Gospel reading is familiar. You ask an older child, or maybe you were asked to perform some chore, be it taking out the trash, cleaning a room, or helping with yardwork. And the responses to such requests are often the same as the two sons in the reading, where one says no at first, then (sullenly) does it, while the other says yes and then does nothing. As a parent, it is a test of patience, and I commiserate with the father in the reading. For those with children, it does get better. This scenario is a test of authority, children testing the authority of their parents as they  mature and become more self-directed, doing things that they want to do. They become their own authority on what they will or will not do. They question the authority of their parents in this unfolding ability to...

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 ...