Sermons by Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall (Page 11)
No Separation
Welcome to the Season of Creation! It’s good to be here with you all again after two weeks of being away enjoying the wonders of God’s Creation. I was grateful to be north of the fires and so suffered very little from the smoke. We stayed in a little house with a veranda that looked into the forest and every morning and evening the bird feeder was visited by a tribe of steller’s jays. One of the interesting things about…
I will, with God’s Help
Isaiah 56:1,6-8 Psalm 67 Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28 I think there’s a little bit of Jewish privilege showing up in today’s gospel and in the second reading. Paul proudly shares his Jewish credentials, and Jesus says “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Privilege is an interesting thing because most of us have ways in which we are privileged in our society and ways in which we are disadvantaged or even…
God is Love-Always
1 Kings 19:9-18 Psalm 85:8-13 Romans 10:5-15 Matthew 14:22-33 It was a quiet evening after the feeding of the five thousand plus. Jesus had gone up a mountain to pray and the disciples headed home across the lake. Perhaps Jesus told them to pick him up later, or perhaps he planned to walk back in his own time. It was a quiet evening hundreds of years earlier when Elijah huddled in his cave, having had a great triumph over the…
Hunger and Hospitality
Isaiah 55:1-5 Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22 Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14:13-21 One of the many things I miss during this time in exile is potlucks! Potlucks do have some downsides – like not knowing what you are eating, eating too much and filling up with carbs. All that delicious pasta, rice and beans are not so good for those of us who are diabetic or nearly so. But I love having other people cook for me; I love knowing you all…
On Tiptoe
Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30,36-43 If I have a favorite passage from the Bible I think it must be today’s reading from Romans 8 which has been rendered as “all creation’s standing on tiptoe just to see the daughters and sons of God come into their own.” All creation’s standing on tiptoe just to see the daughters and sons of God come into their own. Let me remind you of what Paul actually said, “I consider that the sufferings of this…
Heart Transplant
Romans 7:15-25a Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Our second reading this morning is from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Romans is often considered the most systematic statement of Paul’s theology. In most of his other letters, Paul is responding at least in part to particular problems in the church to which he writes. But in Romans, he seems to be trying to express his deepest understandings of the gospel. Today’s passage is a difficult one because it is taken out of its…
More than Coffee and Cookies
Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:40-42 The Sunday before last, we heard that Jesus sent his disciples out on a mission journey with the instructions “proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.” Then last week we heard the continuation of his charge to the disciples where he told them that his teaching was controversial and would lead to divisions…
Committed to Love
Matthew 9:35-10:8 They haven’t been as much in the news recently, but we have all heard of the Westboro Baptist church. It is known for picketing events, including soldiers’ funerals with signs that say things like “God hates Fags”. They are currently declaring “The Coronavirus is God’s Fury.” The backbone of the church is the Phelps family, who under the leadership of the late Fred Phelps developed an idiosyncratic theology based on God’s anger. To be a Phelps is to…
The Trinity and Racism
Trinity and Racism Genesis 1:1-2:4a Today is Trinity Sunday when we focus on the idea of God as three persons in total unity. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to us because we have no way of conceiving a Being who is more complex than ourselves. And there is no passage in the Bible which lays it out. Jesus talked a lot, at least in John’s gospel which we have been reading recently, about his oneness with the Father…
River of Living Water
Acts 2:1-21 John 7:37-39 Happy Birthday God’s People! Today is Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit arrived in wind and tongues of fire and the disciples found themselves on the streets, preaching the gospel. It is also the birthday of the church because it is the Holy Spirit working in and among us who creates the Body of Christ and enables us to be the church even when the church building is closed. It is the birthday of the…