Sermons on Teaching of Jesus (Page 6)

“Wiser is Humbler” – Rev Mike Eggleston at St Benedict’s 

I Corinthians 1.18-25 Guidance from God can be found anywhere, because God is everywhere.  Me, I most often get insights from God either through nature or through scriptures and church tradition.  That’s good because those two, nature and torah, are the two forums of God which are praised in Psalm 19.  “The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple.”  But the start of this sermon comes from a…

Radical Acceptance

Mark 8:31-38 I admit it. I’m mortal. Just like all of us. And that of course is the reminder of Ash Wednesday, that we are entirely dependent on God for every breath we take. And just in case we missed it on Ash Wednesday with this year’s self-service ashes, the loss of our beloved sister Karin this week brought it home powerfully. We are mortal. We are not gods. We are humans.  And so it’s not surprising that we see…

Treated as a Person The Rev. Susan Plucker

5th Sunday After Epiphany February 7, 2021 Isaiah 40:21-31 Psalm 147: 1-12,  21c 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 Mark 1:29-39 Let us begin by hearing the voice of Mary Magdalene.   Seven demons possessed my soul Seven Marys lived inside of me One Mary was chaste, another carnal, A Mary elated, a Mary tormented, A frightened Mary, a lone one, And one that hated God.   I stood on the hill throughout the day. Watching the procession to Golgotha Seeing the crosses…

80lbs of silver

Matthew 25:14-30 As the church year comes to an end, our readings have taken a turn towards the end of time with warnings to be on our guard, to be ready, to be prepared. This morning’s parable is one of these stories, warning us of what will happen if we get it wrong. I expect that you have heard this story of the talents before – it’s a favorite of Sunday School teachers because it seems to have such a…

Holiness

On Tuesday mornings, we are currently reading and reflecting on a book by Richard Foster which describes different strands or emphases in Christian thinking. This week we talked about the Holiness tradition. Now I had seen it as being about rules of behavior and associated it with anti-gay sentiment. But Foster sees it quite differently. For him holiness is about virtuous living, it is about being Christ in the world. And he says, “virtue is good habits we can rely…

Staying Peaceful in the Crowd

Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-14 This is a difficult parable isn’t it? The Kingdom of heaven is like a king who when people don’t show up to his son’s wedding and some of them even shoot the messenger, he becomes enraged and sends homeland security to kill them and burn their cities. Then he sends out his slaves again to invite people to his feast and having seen what happened to the first group of guests, everyone shows up. Now we…

“You are the Messiah”

    To match the weirdness of this week, Smoke and heat on top of pandemic virtual school starts And election brew-ha-ha…. I have a weird sermon.   My brain decided to give me the topic of zombie apocalypse As I started my sermon preparations of reading, thinking, pondering. Now, I’m not a fan of that genre, but I’m been seeing references to it quite a bit In my media posts….. Usually something to the effect of: “Well, 2020 has…