Sermons by Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall (Page 16)
God’s Name for You
God’s Name for You 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a Psalm 42 and 43 Galatians 3:23-29 Luke 8:26-39 Today’s gospel reading raises as many questions as it answers. Questions like what happened to all the pig corpses? What about the livelihood of the pig farmers? does God hate pigs? and the more complex – if the demons went into the pigs rather than the abyss and then the pigs committed suicide – what happened to the demons? do demons drown? I…
Go!
Acts 2:1-21 John 14:8-17, (25-27) It’s always a little tricky doing a sermon series as we have been during Eastertide, because you never know whether the readings for the day will help or hinder your theme. Today they mesh perfectly because we have reached Go on the sevenfold Way of Love. In addition to each of the seven movements being inter-related, Turn and Learn form a pair as do Prayer and Worship, and now Bless and Go. Last week Barry…
The Way of Love – Prayer
Acts 11:1-18 John 13:31-35 Millions of people were inspired by the sermon our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, preached at the royal wedding last year. So much so that this week he received an award for it. In his sermon, Bishop Curry quoted Martin Luther King jr who said, “We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world, for love is the only…
The Way of Love: Learn
Photo by Aaron Burden on unsplash.com John 10:22-30 I’d like you to take a moment to identify someone in the church that you don’t know very well. It may be that you know their name but not much else, or perhaps you don’t even know their name yet. And I’d like you to take just a moment to imagine a conversation with them. You would probably ask them a few questions about themselves – what might you ask? … so…
The Way of Love – Turn
Photo by Dewang Gupta@unsplash.com Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) John 21:1-19 I wonder who was the most astonished; Saul – soon to be known as Paul – when the light flashed from heaven and the voice said “Saul, “Saul, why do you persecute me?”; Ananias when he had a vision telling him to go minister to Saul; or the disciples when they saw Jesus and pulled in an overflowing netfull of fish. God broke through into all their lives in unexpected and…
Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life
Photo by Kristina Rogers on unsplash.com 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-18 Alleluia! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia! Happy Easter! and Happy Earth Day! Tomorrow is the 49th celebration of Earth Day and today is approximately the one thousand, nine hundred and ninetieth celebration of the resurrection. It’s unusual for Easter and Earth Day to coincide since Earth Day is always remembered on April 22, but the date of Easter changes depending on the first full moon…
We are the Light of the World – Easter Vigil
Photo by Noah Silliman on unsplash.com I love this service. I love the excitement of bringing light into the dark church and the telling of stories and singing of songs gathered around the ritual flame. Tonight we remind ourselves that we are the people of God, as we recount our salvation history, renew our vows and then celebrate the first Eucharist of Easter, the foretaste of the heavenly banquet when we will all be gathered together and all will be…
Intimacy with Jesus
Photo by Isaac Taylor on Pexels.com John 12:1-8 This mornings’ gospel reading poses a false dichotomy – should we give money to the poor or give it to God? That’s like saying should I love my neighbor or God and the answer is Yes – both! There is actually no distinction between the two but my relationship with God as God and neighbor as human neighbor are quite different. But this reading raises many other questions which are more perplexing…
The Prodigal Son
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 This morning we come to that wonderful story which many of us learned in Sunday School and which has been so beautifully portrayed by numerous artists including Rembrandt – the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Prodigal is not a word I use very often so I looked it up and found that it means “spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.” In the story, the younger son takes his inheritance in cash, goes away and…
God always welcomes us
Luke 13:31-35 Today’s Gospel is a rather odd passage. Some commentators have suggested that it’s two separate sayings of Jesus put together to make one. I don’t know if that’s true, but it certainly comes at a time when the pressure is on Jesus. He is making his way toward Jerusalem when he’s told that Herod is out to get him. You will remember that after Herod the Great died, the country was divided between his sons. Herod Antipas ruled…