In today’s passage from that the closing passage of that same Epistle, Paul urges the Church at Philippi to rejoice. That word ‘rejoice’ gives us the name for this third Sunday in Advent – Gaudete Sunday – characterized by rose pink vestments and altar hangings – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, […]
Sermon Topic: Repentance
This Lovely Terror
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The great temptation, when faced with an apocalyptic reading like that from our Gospel this Evening (With a blazing furnace at the end of the world prepared for the wicked) The great temptation is to attenuate its terror. Surely […]
"That's not fair!"
When my children were young, I was often called on to arbitrate in a dispute between them. It was usually over something minor, and often began with increasingly louder exclamations of “That’s mine!” After weighing up the evidence set before me, I would try and find some compromise solution (unless of course it really was […]
In the Midst of the Mess
I’d much rather be preaching about the woods today. About the way in which God consoles us with the beauty of the trees – the trees which will soon enough all across the city and the state of New York begin to become that fiery bouquet of reds and yellows and oranges that ushers in […]
The urgent message of Lent demands immediate action.
Today, we hear in our Gospel reading of the journey of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry and how significant the beginning of that ministry is in Mark’s Gospel. There is an immediacy about Mark’s Gospel – the first to have been written with its, sometimes very rough and ready, Greek and its almost […]
The Kingdom of God is at hand.
What does Jesus mean when he says in today’s gospel reading that the Kingdom of God is “at hand?” The term “kingdom of God,” along with its parallel, “kingdom of heaven,” appears in the gospels dozens of times, but in only a few is it described as being “at hand” (Mt 3:2, 4:17, 10:7; Mk […]
From Dust to Glory
Our Lenten journey begins with a simple yet dramatic symbolic action; ashes, placed on our foreheads in the sign of the cross.
What to do during Advent
There is an old Anglican practice at ceremonies of Holy Baptism for young children.[1] After going through the customary back and forth—the readings of scriptures, the examination of the sponsors, prayers and the blessing of the water—there is an instruction for the priest to take the child and say to the godparents, “Name this child.” […]
Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven
There was a prominent stained glass window in the church where I grew up. It depicted heaven. It was a beautiful window to behold, all clouds and angels, loosely based on the description of the heavenly Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. The detail that has stuck with me the most is the wide streets […]
Speaking of God
It is a truism about sermons that they are local events. That is, they are delivered to certain people, at certain times and places. Most of them come into being for a short time, and then pass away, their humble job done, and their passage into the mists of history probably a small mercy for […]