Sermons on Spiritual Life (Page 23)

The peace of God is not peace

Photo by Faye Cornish @unsplash.com Isaiah 5:1-7 Luke 12:49-56 Sometimes I hear an Old Testament reading – like the one we heard today or the one we had a few weeks ago where Hosea was told to take a “wife of whoredom “ – and I wish we could skip all that and just listen to Jesus. But then we get to gospel passages like this one. Jesus is not having a good day. He is looking ahead to his…

Be Like Carson

Photo from Wikimedia Commons Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24 Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 Luke 12:32-40 I confess that I’m a Downtown Abbey fan. I got quite caught up in the Crawley’s comings and goings, and enjoyed it even more the second time I watched it. I’m really looking forward to the film coming out next month. Today’s gospel reading makes me think of Carson. The lord goes off to a wedding feast (and in those days, weddings took several days…

Being Christ

Photo by Annie Bolin @unsplash.com Hosea 11:1-11 Colossians 3:1-11 Luke 12:13-21 When I first saw the headline this morning I thought they had revised the death count from the shooting in El Paso yesterday, then I realized. Another shooting, this time in Dayton, Ohio. Both hard on the heels of the tragedy in Gilroy last Sunday. There are no words for the pain and anguish the families of the victims are experiencing today. And the sadness of a culture where…

Ask and it shall be given…

Photo by Michael Heuss unsplash.com Hosea 1:2-10 Psalm 85 Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19) Luke 11:1-13 I imagine that quite a few of you had a hard time with that first reading from the prophet Hosea! Our First Testament readings during the season of Pentecost this year give us a quick tour of the prophets. We started in the 9th century Before the Common Era  – that’s 2900 years ago – with stories of Elijah and Elisha. Now we’ve moved up a…

Peace be with you

Photo by Patrick Fore @unsplash.com Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 You have probably heard that St. Francis said, “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” This is very convenient for those of us who are shy or those of us who find it difficult to articulate our faith, or who don’t want to appear pushy. We want the way we live to be enough, so that we can get away without actually admitting that we are Christians, without…

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…