In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. We celebrate today, on the Feast of the Epiphany We celebrate today one of the most unexpectedly strange feasts on the calendar. We celebrate the end of the journey of a group of ostensibly Magian priest astrologers Who have […]
Sermon Topic: Grace
Awakening to Grace: The Journey from Panic to Praise
Since it’s a weekend evening, let’s start with a story about movie stars. Who is your favorite? I personally admire Keanu Reeves. He’s not just a talented actor known for his remarkable performances but also a person of noble character. Despite his fame and wealth, he remains humble and grounded. You’ll find him riding the […]
The choices we make influence the stories that we will tell.
Yesterday, I was sent an extraordinary copy of a letter, typed on an old typewriter from the 1970s. It was a letter that was sent from one of the most important world leaders at the time, but it was written to someone whom he had not yet met, and whom he knew might never meet, […]
Remember that thou art dust
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Remember that thou art dust. It is a terrifyingly vulnerable thing to discover yourself Fully seen. Fully known. And, despite it all, Fully loved. By the one who sees all the secret places of our hearts. By God. Terrifying, […]
The cost of grace: The discovery of my true self.
Two years before the start of the Second World War, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” [1] Difficult […]
Fiddler Crab Grace
I’d never seen a fiddler crab before. I’m from Ohio and we don’t have very many crabs there except the ones flown in for restaurants to serve with drawn butter. So walking along the boardwalk on the shore of the Outer Cape this summer, I was amazed to see the wet sand all around me […]
The Shape of Love
“For God so loved the world…” Without question that has to be the best-known Bible verse in the world. John 3:16 – you see it on billboards, in stadiums, in tracts and on bags. You hear things like, God is love or God loves you. People say this love is what Christianity is all about. […]
The Fullness of the Promise
“Leave your home. Leave your family.” And he did it. That’s what the Lord commanded a man named Abram, when he spoke to him one day, out of the blue. Not exactly mincing words, either: leave home, leave family, because for the purposes of God’s providence, Abram must be given a new beginning altogether, a […]
The Gift of Grace
Supposedly we have left summer behind by the first week of October, though you can hardly tell from the temperature outside. The autumn equinox was back a couple of weeks ago. Fittingly for the modern world, it was marked not so much by a change in weather as the advent of pumpkin-spice everything. Welcome to […]
Against Fairness
There is a practical misconception about prayer, it seems to me, one that is easily refuted by anyone who has spent much time doing it. That is the idea that praying is just a naturally easy thing to do. Well, it’s not. It doesn’t just happen. I know this both from my own experience and […]
