Sermons
A Tapeworm of Evilness
This week I went to the first meeting of a course at the Coolidge Theater: “Conversations on Religion and Film.” In the homework for the first class, Nathaniel Dorsky, writing about film, wrote this definition in which I’m substituting “worship” for his word “film.” “I began to experience worship (film) as a direct and intimate metaphor or model for our being, a model which had the potential for being transformative, to be an evocation of spirit, and to become a form of devotion.
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 16, 2011
In the name of the One who has made us in the divine image and called us to new and eternal life. AMEN.
Friday and Saturday, the Vestry, Jeffrey Mills, and I met with a consultant, our friend, The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton to engage together in a Mutual Ministry Review— about which we’ll say more at announcement time, and you’ll see the lists of what we said and decided together for goals, about shared understandings, and stories. The first thing to say, though, is that we all enjoyed the experience, and the handout in your leaflet has both the goals we established— and we expect to check in on them quarterly together, all of us— and the words that we heard, by frequency, on the wordle. Take a look at each for a moment now. We’ll share both sets of findings and ask for ways to reach those goals, and continue checking in with each other, and to listen and hear more of each of our individual stories. We heard from @ 34 people, so the words are the ones that came up in the verbatims from each person. Notice towards the top right, beginning under the n in congregation, the word, “continue” and to the left of it “positive,” and the near total absence of negative words. We describe ourselves by our people in our community’s congregation, a church. Do you notice anything else about the words?
The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost, October 9, 2011
Michael D. Harnois, St. John the Evangelist
May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.
I must begin this morning’s sermon with an apology. Several weeks ago, when my good friend Marisa Egerstrom was getting herself ready to go Occupy Wall Street, gathering up supplies and vestments and other necessities ... I was skeptical. The goals of this little movement seemed much too diffuse. I could not figure out what they might accomplish. I wasn’t even sure what they hoped to accomplish. I conversed with other old fuddy-duddies like myself and their feelings were much the same. It wasn’t that any of us were not sympathetic with activism generally. Not at all, although it is possible that some of us have grown a bit cynical in our dotage. Nor was it that we didn’t necessarily believe the time for action was now. Indeed, I confess that most of us are desperate to see some action that is not associated with plants of the genus Camellia, but have not really known what to do.
The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, October 2, 2011
The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows God’s handiwork. AMEN.
“Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” How do we produce the fruits of the kingdom— what are they? How do we know what we are to do and when we’ve done it, done enough? This morning’s lessons have thoughts about these questions and are apt ones to think of as we begin to engage in the Mutual Ministry Review, a process in which we’ll talk to each other and find out what we’re doing and what we hope to be doing, and we’ll talk to each other intentionally a little more.
The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 25, 2011
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 78: 1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2: 1-13
MATTHEW 21:23-32
In the name of God, who created us from love, saves us through love, and loves us now and always. AMEN.
Matthew's Gospel passage of today is one of the "controversy" stories, after Jesus has entered Jerusalem shortly before the crucifixion. Two observations about the timing of this confrontation story, "By whose authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" and then I'll comment on the passage itself.
The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 11, 2011
Ever-present Christ, grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts. AMEN.
The unforgiving slave’s Lord “handed him over to be tortured until he paid his entire debt. So our heavenly Father will do to everyone one of us, if we do not forgive our brothers or sisters from our heart.” Now, I ask with Peter, “If another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus replies, “Not seven, but seventy-seven times.” Is Jesus talking to the sinner or the one sinned against, even though Peter clearly assumes he’s the sinned against person.
The Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost, September 4, 2011
In the name of God, who created us from love, saves us through love, and loves us now and always. AMEN.
I remember spending a summer at music school in Nice. We were each given a list of rules. Two were particularly challenging. One said we couldn’t have overnight visitors, and since I knew no one else in France I was puzzled about how break that, while the remaining one we couldn’t translate; we didn’t know the key word. (The classmate I was traveling with and I had promised each other we’d break every rule.) Some were easy, about noise and coming in at reasonable hour, and other standard “living together” rules. Happily a college friend and her brother came through Nice, and had no place to stay, so we put them up, and that did that rule. When someone used her hair drier and blew a fuse, we figured out what that word we couldn’t translate was: fuse.
The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost, August 28, 2011
“Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples. /Sing to him; sing praises… Glory in his holy Name… Remember the marvels he has done…” “Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness, and bring forth in us the fruit of good works, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” That seems to me the bedrock of the readings, of our faith, our lives, and our hopes, and necessarily of the two narratives which we have this morning. In an odd way the cut-n-paste of this morning’s Psalm and Collect, I just began with, also sketch an outline of a liturgy.
The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost, August 21, 2011
There are four or possibly five identities, or voices, involved in the question and answers of “Who do you say that I am,” the question which is the heart of today’s Gospel. Each personal voice or persona needs both to understand the context of Jesus’ question and work out an answer. In effect we are to think “with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” in Paul’s language, each person’s identity, and then to understand something of the one body made of those many members. The question always challenges the person asked as well as saying something of the person asking.
The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost, August 14, 2011
It’s an odd Gospel this morning, with the first part arguing with the Pharisees about Law, and then the memorable argument with the Canaanite woman. How odd though to have the psalm remind us that it is good and pleasant when people live together in unity. Is that to connect to Joseph and the brothers who’d mugged him and sold him to slavers going to Egypt, or to Jesus and the foreign, non-Jew woman? If that’s the link, it has an ironic ring to it. It’s the account of the Canaanite woman with Jesus that sticks with us because she seems right, not Jesus, so we’ll look at it in detail.
