Sermon: C Easter Day 31 March 2013

Is 65: 17-25; Ps 118; 1 Cor 15:19-26; LUKE 24: 1-12

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

“Welcome happy morning age to age shall say.” And so we arrive at the real 

Easter Morning, the 4^th day of a three-day sequence. Parishes that do glorious Vigils, as we do, have some inclination to skip Easter morning, because it has already become Easter; they’ve sung “Jesus Christ is risen today;” and what more is there to do to welcome the risen Lord. We began this service with a Procession for this reason. While the parishes that do Vigils have done processions, and readings, and drama, and darkness and light, and more, Easter morning is still Easter morning, and Easter cannot be observed with less moment than the other two major Church festivals of Christmas and Pentecost. Whether or not a Vigil was held doesn’t impact those people for whom Easter happens in the early part of Sunday morning. The great Triduum, the great Three Days don’t include Sunday, because Sunday is always Sunday and always a feast to remember and relive Easter, especially on …Easter. Easter morning can never be an afterthought to the Vigil, nor simply zipped through. Easter is at least Easter, especially on—Easter.

C Easter Vigil 2013

 Alleluia! The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

If, in the Genesis first reading by the third Day of Creation, we have not demonstrated clearly that this great liturgy is different from all others, surely that tonight’s Sermon is listed on page 18 should be a definitive clue. This liturgy is not designed around a balance between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table. This Liturgy is more like a family reunion party after not seeing each other for a while. Everyone needs to hear our grandparent’s, our ancestors’ family stories, enough of them to recognize themselves as part of the family. We want to push those old voices along too, but the stories remind us, who we are, where we came from, what makes us a community, and to where we’re traveling together. That story, one made of so many stories, takes time and listening, time and feelings, time and mystery, time and beauty.

Sermon: C Baptism of Our Lord 13 January 2013

Is 43: 1-7; Ps 29 1-11; Acts 8:14-17; LUKE 3: 15-17, 21-22

Gracious G*d, grant that those baptized into your Name may keep the covenant they have made. AMEN.

This morning we celebrate three distinct occasions, all connected through the presence and revelation of Jesus Christ, and also each connected to us in the here and now. First it’s the season of Epiphany, the season of light, when each week someone or some group understands that this baby, this particular person, is, in some way, in such close relationship with G*d that he made and makes real, an experience of G*d, with G*d, to those who are in these weekly stories. Second, the Sunday after the Epiphany is always the baptism of Jesus, and so we’ve heard that account. Since it’s Epiphany Season and the Baptism of Jesus, the Church has selected this as one of the liturgical dates appropriate for baptisms in the church. We are honored and blessed to be baptizing two children Theo Gray and Arthur Patrick Watson to welcome them into the church, this congregation of St. John the Evangelist, this parish of the Episcopal Church, the larger Anglican communion, and the whole Christian community—and with the human family reaching towards a connection with the eternal and Holy.

Sermon: B 14 Pentecost 17 Proper 2 September 2012

Song 2:8-13; Ps 45: 1-2, 7-10; Jas 1: 17-27; MK 7: 1-23

This is the Day the Lord has made; let us give thanks for it, health and strength to work, minds to think, and hands to serve. AMEN.

“But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing” instructs James. Jesus replies to some accusing Pharisees, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” The struggle in these lessons is about hearing and doing, upholding religious traditions and doing what religion values doing. Goodness knows, Anglo-Catholic parishes, ones of “smells and bells” are accused of doing dead or passé forms, and not getting out there, rolling up our sleeves, and bringing about the reign of God.