Sermon preached on Leaving Sunday, 2016’* You have all heard the ancient saying, quoted many times from this pulpit I am sure: “The one who sings, prays twice.” Singing is directly associated with the creativity of God and music has always played a part in the worship of the Church and, before that, in the […]
Sermon Topic: Christian Life
Behold, I make all things new.
From the place where we are right Flowers will never grow In the spring. – Words of the late internationally renowned Israeli Poet, Yehuda Amichai Why do the Pharisees and the Lawyers seem to get such a rough ride with Jesus? Perhaps because they have something in common with Jesus; they want people to know […]
Blind Bartimaeus
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. The Gospel of Mark is a famously swift-moving gospel. Everything happens quickly, one event after another with barely enough time for the reader to catch his breath. In today’s portion of chapter ten, in the course of just a single sentence, one […]
Father Austin's Last Sermon
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Amen. If I may, I would begin this my final sermon with a point of humility. May I say to each of you that I am truly sorry for my sins, and if I have sinned against you in some […]
The Cost of Discipleship
Every once in a while we come across a strange and surprising depiction of Jesus in the Gospels. It doesn’t happen all the time. After a while you may get a general sense of what’s going on, most of the time. But in today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we see something strange. As […]
It Is Not Easy to be Jesus' Disciple
Many people have a romantic notion of what it would have been like to be a disciple of Jesus. They imagine: you were with Jesus every day, and you got to see the miracles and you got to hear his teaching, and it was easy. To which I say: rubbish! Exhibit A is today’s gospel. […]
Hope for Hard-Hearted People
We have here two stories back-to-back, and I’m going to make two connections. First story: Jesus is on the road with his disciples, and he wants to be alone with them: he would not that any man should know where they were. Alone with his disciples, he predicts that he will be killed, and will […]
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
This sermon was preached on the anniversary of Fr Turner’s first Sunday at Saint Thomas Church. What does it mean to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus? Does it mean looking at the world in a different way, rather like some people wear wrist bands engraved with the letters WWJD – what […]
Speaking Frankly about Things Divine
We are still at the beginning of our Lenten journey—only a week and a half in—but, as you heard in today’s gospel, from Mark, the difficult words are coming already. They came today in a surprising form, however. In much of the gospel of Mark, Jesus is depicted as being somewhat enigmatic in his interactions […]
The Race, the Goal, and Jesus' Enemies
Our reading from the latter part of Philippians this evening is packed with a number of Saint Paul’s favorite themes. The Christian life is an endurance race; Paul says he presses on to win the prize which is the high calling, the upward call, which God gives to us in Christ Jesus. This understanding of […]
