Sermons on Spiritual Life (Page 16)
Another Kind of Christian Life
Rev. Brian Stein-Webber Pentecost 12 John 6:1-58 St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church, Los Osos One of the marks of a Christian person is adherence to a certain set of beliefs. For Episcopalians and Lutherans, to take two, this means coinciding our belief with the historical creeds, the Apostles’, the Nicene, the Athanasian. This type of faith is a matter of cognitive assent, if you understand what I’m saying. It goes into our brains and out of our brains. I remember…
God In The Flesh
Proper 14B 1 Kings 19:4-8 Ephesians 4:25-5:2 John 6:35, 41-51 The Rev. Susan Plucker August 8, 2021 Our scripture readings begin this morning with The prophet Elijah alone and literally exhausted to death. Elijah has been battling for God against the dark forces Of Queen Jezebel and her priests of the god Baal. Elijah and God have won. The priests of Baal are all…
The Work of God
Ephesians 4:1-16John 6:24-35 I recently called a carpet cleaner. I had three possible times to get the carpets in Jill’s office cleaned and I was looking for someone who could come at one of those specific times. I started with a Los Osos company. Jerry answered and said “Now don’t I know you?” I didn’t think so but said that we had met when he had cleaned these carpets before. He paused and said something like, “You’re the wife of…
Your Inner Hammock
My car needs cleaning. Not so much the outside but the inside. I have been transporting stuff that I haven’t figured out where to put and also my golf clubs because then they’re there when I need them. Then I dropped a bag of Indian snacks that I was busy snacking on, and all those little yellow bits fell between the seats, And then just the other day I had to pick up a microwave from Best Buy. I thought…
Hold the Vision
Ephesians 2:11-22Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 Today we see two different pictures of the followers of Jesus. In the Gospel we heard how the apostles gathered around Jesus and told him how their mission trips had gone. You may remember that a couple of weeks ago we heard Jesus sending them out two by two without any extra provisions or clothing. Now they’re back, excited about their experiences. This is very immediate and personal, and then all the people are rushing about…
Responding to the Needs of the Moment
Luke 14:27-33 I have heard tell of a spiritual master who cultivates bonsai trees. He has many pots of miniature trees and he tends each one carefully, adjusting its branches, pruning a little here and holding up a bit there. And every one of his bonsai trees represents one of his disciples, and as he is forming the tree so he is forming the disciple. St. Benedict was big on formation – the process whereby we move from the sinful…
A Prophet In Their Own Home
Ezekiel 2:1-52 Corinthians 12:2-10Mark 6:1-13 “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” That is a saying that resonates from my childhood – I can’t be sure but I think my mother quoted it when she was feeling under-appreciated. But I doubt that she actually saw herself as a prophet. We tend to think of prophets as those who utter prophecy, and prophecy as saying what will happen in…
Rushing past the margins
In 1973 researchers conducted an interesting experiment. They asked a group of seminary students to go from one building to another to complete a task. Some of them were told they would be preparing a talk on the Good Samaritan, others that they were to prepare a talk on seminary jobs. Some were told they were late, others that they had plenty of time. On the way between the two buildings, the students passed a man sitting slumped in an…
God of Chaos
This year most of our gospel lessons are taken from Mark’s gospel. Although it is the second gospel in our New Testament, scholars agree that it was the first one to be written down. Each of the gospel writers uses a different lens in thinking about Jesus’ life and teachings. Mark’s project is to show that Jesus is God by emphasizing his power over demons, sickness, and in todays’ reading, over the forces of nature. As is clear from the…
All will be forgiven.
Do you remember the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral? In one of the weddings, comedian Rowan Atkinson plays a young priest who gets his words muddled and concludes a prayer with the words, “in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Goat”. Determined not to make the same mistake a second time, at the end of the wedding he blesses the congregation in the name of, “The Father the Son and the Holy Spigot.” Was…