Meditation for the 3rd Sunday in Advent: gaudete!

even now the axe is at the root of the trees:
gaudete! dare we rejoice?
flee! says the prophet:
still we cling to all that cheered us,
moth fretted securities, corroded treasures,
narrow rooms and meaner habits.
gaudete! dare we rejoice:
we vipers who live on usury?
flee! says the prophet:
g-d has shown what is required of you.
do justice, love mercy, walk humbly:
bring fruit worthy of repentance.
gaudete! the apostle answers:
let your gentleness be known to all. the lord is near.
leave the narrow land, divest yourself of extra coats:
and in the wide wilderness the peace of christ will
establish your hearts.
even now the axe is at the root of the trees:
gaudete! dare we rejoice?

Sermon: B 18 Pentecost 21 Proper 30 September 2012

Esth 7:1-6,9-10;9:20-22; Ps 124; Jms 5: 13:13-20; MK 9: 38-50

Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth. AMEN.

Today we include Michaelmas in our observance and thinking. It’s odd though to have the story of Esther on the same day as Michaelmas, the first being the Purim narrative, a Jewish celebration usually observed in March—and its attendant cookies available at the picnic—and September 29, yesterday, was St Michael and all the Angels. It’s jarring to have asparagus-spring-fertility matched together with and pumpkins-autumn-fruition together, and nearly St. Francis (to come next week and here.) Maybe, seasonal constants don’t shape your day, but they do underlie the Church’s wheel of time, nature’s time, and light patterns in which we live and grow. Also, it’s election time, and elections cross both nature’s wheel of time and our church and personal commitments to decency. Today’s lections each have a structuring, almost echoing, commitment to some sense of decency.

June 10 2012, Pentecost 2

A sermon preached at the Church of St. John the Evangelist on June 10, 2012 by The Rev. Thomas Eoyang.

Good Friday 6 April 2012

In the name of God, who created us from love saved AMEN.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Where are we?

Michael D. Harnois

Passion Sunday B

St. John the Evangelist

1 April 2012

One of my many sinful pleasures is a comic strip called “Coffee with Jesus.” It runs on Facebook, although it can also be seen on the website of its two young creators, who call themselves Radio Free Babylon. It depicts the Jesus of portraits--long hair, beard, mustache, 30-ish--but neatly groomed in a jacket and tie, sharing a polite cup of coffee with one of a rotating group of companions. The strips range from the merely funny to the deeply cynical. One of my recent favorites goes like this: