These writings are designed for preaching on the Sundays that correlate to the scripture listed in the Lectionary of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. As of Advent 2010, these are no longer the texts selected for use in most Episcopal Churches. But mine does.
Each sermon links to the scripture that influence it.
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Save A Life
(A sermon for John 11:17-44 Presented at Christ Christ, Bordentown, NJ, March 21-22, 2026)
Last year _ I was fortunate to have someone save my life.
For those who are curious, you may be wondering and envisioning someone giving me CPR, or pulling me out of the way of a speeding car, or out of a burning building _ or some other disastrous event.
My life-saving, though, is more complicated than reducing it to a single event like these. But I’m no less grateful than I would be if it had been one of those things. And it’s also worth noting, ironically, that the person who saved me doesn’t even know they did.
So, let’s hold that thought for a minute. Because I want to focus on not only what you heard in today’s long Gospel story of chapter 11, verses 17 to 44, but what you didn’t hear in the preceding verses.
(March 22, 2026, 10am Mass) Before the Gospel you heard today, there is a tense dialogue between Jesus and his apostles about visiting Lazarus at the request of his sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus mysteriously hints that he knows Lazarus is already dead and tells his apostles, “For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe”.
So they go to visit, and you heard today’s Gospel story that Jesus arrives four days after Lazarus has died, and Lazarus’s entombed corpse is starting to smell. And you heard Martha and Mary say to Jesus that if Jesus had been here, Lazarus would not have died. But Martha and Mary also acknowledge that Jesus will resurrect us all at some point. We also hear that _ Jesus wept _before raising his friend Lazarus from the dead.
So when you read this story, you may wonder, what does this mean?… ‘For your sake, I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe”?
Did Jesus knowingly let Lazarus die so he could show off and show he could raise the dead? Or maybe Jesus was overly self-assured that Lazarus wasn’t going to die, maybe because Martha and Mary always complain about Lazarus’ health, … and this time Jesus was wrong … which is why he cried.
But no. We know Jesus is not a show-off nor complacent toward our cries. This story is a sign to us that we don’t have to wait for the end of times for our resurrection. That time is coming, but John’s Gospel as a whole also indicates that this notion of ‘eternal life’ is already happening now. Our lives are saved by our faith in God and the continuous sanctification of spiritual growth.
And as we grow, what Jesus wants us to do_ is believe. Believe in God. Believe in the power of God. Believe in God’s glory and mercy. Believe that God loves us. Believe that God hears our cries, and is helping us to live in this life and for the next. And to help us with this, he gave us two commandments: The first and great is, thou shalt love (the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul), and with all thy mind.
And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. This means loving your neighbor is the same as loving God. To love God is to love his creation _ which includes _ all of us.
Now _ loving your neighbor is tricky. They…say and do things that are annoying _ that are incredulous _ that are aggressive. And to put it plainly, your neighbors can ruin your day.
But nowhere is Jesus ever quoted as saying, “I hate that person.” He never says, “I hate the apostles.” “I hate Thomas; he’s always doubting me.” “I hate Peter; he never listens.” “I hate Judas because I know he’s going to betray me.” And there is no beatitude that says, “Blessed are those who hate their neighbor.”
Instead, Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful ___for they shall obtain mercy”. So just as your neighbor should show you mercy, so should you show your neighbor mercy.
Moreover, by bringing Lazarus back to life, Jesus demonstrates that saving a life is possible. For us, we cannot raise the dead. But we can help the living come back to life. We can help those around us, walk toward life because we know a life filled with hate is not a life of love. A life of hate_ is a life of death. And Jesus _ just like he did for Lazarus, opens our tomb, our life of death, and invites us to return to the living.
So, if you’re still wondering who saved my life, Jesus is a good answer. But it was someone on earth who, with an enormous amount of nonjudgmental patience, mercy, and goodness, showed me some of the blind spots that I had in my life where a little bit of hate resided. I’m not happy to admit that. But now that I’m aware, I feel much more alive.
And that’s how this goes: A little less hate equals a little more love; A little less death equals a little more life saved; and the little more life that you get can help you save a little more life in someone else.
If you believe this, this is how, as Jesus says, you will “see the glory of God.”
and now for a song that inspired this sermon …
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A Safe Space with Jesus
(A sermon for Matthew 3:7-19 Presented at Christ Christ, Bordentown, NJ, January 17-18, 2026)
I know for some of you it’s a surprise to come to church and find that there’s a different set of prayers and responses that you may not be as familiar with _ and no communion. For others, it’s exactly what you expected, except maybe you were not expecting a sermon. Expected or unexpected, when we substitute Morning Prayer for the regular liturgy, it’s a change to your regular Church routine. But be assured that no matter where you are in the mix, you are in a safe space today to be yourself, to say the prayers out loud, or just stay quiet to yourself.
I deliberately used the word “safe space” today because it has good intent. Unfortunately, like many words and phrases that enter the zeitgeist, they become overused and diluted to the point that they lose their original meaning and become utterly annoying to hear.
But “safe space” is where ideally_ everyone should be. Safe Space is a place where “self-care” is considered important. And where _ your “self-care” is also important to those around you. And _ it’s a place where you are not told that your “self-care” is you being selfish.
As many of you know or have heard, last year I became a full-time student at the Princeton Theological Seminary. Not bragging or complaining _ but it is a rigorous program, and I found myself to be busier than I have in my entire life. At times, I wondered if this was deliberately designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, as I have heard they do in some schools. But anytime I started to feel the strain of this different life, I remembered the sermon that the school’s president, Dean Walton, gave during our orientation _ and the words he said so many times that no matter what doubts us students had, he said, “You are in the right place at the right time”.
Along with those words echoing in my mind during the semester, I interestingly heard “to have self-care” repeated over and over by faculty, administrators, and students.
This school, for all its rigor, still insisted that I take care of myself. This seems like a mixed message coming from a school that teaches about a religion that says sacrifice your comforts, money, and possessions for the poor and needy _ to think of others before yourself _ to not be selfish.
But today’s Gospel passage is that moment in Scripture that reminds you to look out for your own welfare, to watch for danger, to turn to others for help with your job, and not to overlook self-care, especially when you are feeling overwhelmed. Jesus expresses _ signs of being overwhelmed. His ministry has grown to such a large number of people that he’s concerned about himself and others being crushed by the crowd. And He knows he needs to turn to twelve others to help him with spreading His message.
But why would Jesus be worried about being crushed? Or think he needed help with spreading the Gospel? After all, Jesus is God and can do anything. But not only was Jesus fully divine_ he was fully human. St. Mark likes to show us this side of Jesus. St. Mark shows us that Jesus has feelings. He gets hungry, sad, and angry. So this notion of Jesus having self-preservation is not far-fetched. Jesus recognizes that spreading the good news of God’s love requires his human body to exist and for stress and anxiety to be at a manageable level.
It’s this recognition that exemplifies this season. Epiphany is about discovery, and the gospel readings you will hear in Church during this season reflect this: the magi discovering baby Jesus, John the Baptist recognizing Jesus, and Peter, John & James witnessing Jesus’ Transfiguration. And for us _we’re past Christmas and are now awakened to Jesus’ light as _ a divine and human being, and we get to walk in that light. In that light, we get to walk with dignity _ to walk unafraid.
Also, during this season, we hear from the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus says to us, “You are the light of the world … let your light shine before others, so that they may … give glory to your Father in heaven.”
So it’s important to remember that, along with Jesus’ light and his humanness, we are that light too, and at all times we are human. We all have points of fragility. No one is impervious to pain.
So, to keep sharing that light, we all need at least one friend (or maybe 12) who lets us be ourselves.
And all of us need “safe spaces” and “self-care” so that we can keep that light burning so that everyone else can discover that light too.
Amen.
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Peace On Earth
(A sermon for Matthew 1:18-25 Presented at Christ Christ, Bordentown, NJ, December 21, 2025)
I begin today’s sermon with a quote from Oswald Chambers and his book, “My Utmost for His Highest” __in which he says, “Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you will find something in your common-sense circumstances that flatly contradicts your faith.” As you can imagine, the faith he is referencing to is our faith in God.
But when we venture out in our lives _ we also put faith in our family and neighbors, our schools and churches, our government and business leaders. We put faith in the weather report. We put faith in that we’re hearing the truth _and that everything will stay orderly.
And when things stay orderly, we love God.
And then life happens.
Life happens and there is disorder. Things don’t go as planned. We stub our toes, or have a spat with our significant other, and at the worst for humankind…there is war and devastation. There is disease, famine and starvation. There is loneliness and heartbreak.
And then we question our faith in a God that allows our lives to be disorderly (and uncertain) during our short time on earth. We question our faith because common sense tells us it would be better that these bad things didn’t happen. But when we ask why God is not making everything orderly and perfect, we are not seeking faith.
We are seeking certainty. And one could argue that faith and certainty are polar opposites.
Faith requires us to think beyond what we know to be certain and our want for complete order and perfection. Having faith, particularly in God, is first _ that He exists. That He exists as a father, a son and holy spirit _ that He created us to seek salvation and that someday we would see him face-to-face. God created us to have faith in Him.
In turn, for our faithfulness, God gives us the gift of loving, not perfection. To prove this, God made two things happen that go beyond our notions of common-sense certainty.
One _ he made life happen _ literally. A young virgin woman became the mother of the incarnated Son of the trinity, or as he is commonly known … Jesus Christ.
Second, He created angels and directed them to communicate to us. Specifically, in this case, for the angels to communicate to Mary, for her to understand that she would be with child by the Holy Spirit _and not just any child _ but the Son of Man,
AND
for the angels to communicate to Joseph with instruction to care for this child that was not conceived by him or another man, but instead _conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Given that there was not a precedent for such an Annunciation, Mary and Joseph couldn’t rely on looking this up on the internet _or go to the library or bookstore _ to look this up. So how could they live with a situation that surely went beyond their common- sense certainty?
They did it_ by letting it go. They let go of their certainty, and in turn, God was able to give us a gift _ a personal sign of what and who to place our faith in.
God gave us the gift of Jesus. But Mary and Joseph, by parenting God’s gift _ gave us the model for having faith. Their example shows us that faith in God results in great gifts.
As we all know _ faith is not easy. It requires our hearts, our souls, and our minds to work together toward a commitment _ to not only loving God _ but to love our neighbor as ourselves. Both require us, at times, to let go of what we believe to be certain.
Sure _ people do some heinous things to each other _ things that are hard to forgive _ that make it hard to love and have faith in each other. But when you can _ and any chance you can _ _ let it go.
Let go of your certainty on how you think everyone should behave. Let go of your needless judgements and grudges > Let go of the resentments that build up walls >Let go _ of your hardened heart.
How many of you _want to have _ peace on earth? This message is everywhere this time of year. It’s on Christmas cards, tree ornaments, it is in songs, on T-shirts, ugly sweaters. So, I’m sure everyone wants it. But what are we willing to do to have it?
God gave us the gift to have peace on earth. God gave us the gift of Jesus Christ so we would follow his commandments _ to love God and our neighbors, to have faith in both_ and to let go of whatever it is in our lives, that is preventing us from doing so.
God’s gift of peace requires us to give it to others.
For this Christmas season, my hope for us is that we can all welcome that gift into our lives, to have faith like Mary and Joseph, to think beyond our common-sense certainties, and to truly give the gift of peace.
May the peace of the Lord be with you always.
Amen.
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Who’s The Biggest Sinner?
(A sermon for Luke 15:1-10 Presented at Christ Christ, Bordentown, NJ, Sept. 13-14, 2025)
The parables that we heard today from Luke Chapter 15, Verses 1 through 10, are the “prequels” to the more famous parable in Verse 11_The parable of the Prodigal Son in which the return of the self-serving son is celebrated by his father_ which disgusts his brother who had a lived a more righteous life. That parable probably hits closer to our hearts because it relates to our feelings of ranking in our families, and relationships with our siblings. Hence for some, the Prodigal Son parable invokes a sense of unfairness.
But reading the two “prequel” parables today, without reading the prodigal son, can still elicit a sense of unfairness. Sure, we can understand the joy of finding the lost sheep or the lost coin, or any regular thing that we lost. But these are not regular lost things that Jesus is discussing. The coin and sheep are metaphors for a sinner.
Call it what you want, a coin, a sheep. It can still be annoying to hear that someone who we think has been less righteous, and more of a sinner, is more celebrated than us when they are found. Right? “We paid our dues.” “No one gave us a get-out-of-jail-free-card.” “We sacrificed, struggled and toiled.” “We don’t see angels reacting with joy over all we did.”
I think the main problem is people don’t want to see sinners getting the upper hand. We also want to believe that sinning is something that someone else does or does a lot more of than ourselves.
Digger deeper, some people are bothered by being labelled as a “sinner”. In those cases, some people turn to denial …, “Uh-uh, not me. I never sin.” Or we change our vernacular … “I transgressed, which is really the same thing” _ in hopes that it is less of a bitter pill to swallow.
It can make it easier to accept the label of “sinner” if we think someone else sinned more than us.
So, if we’re thinking in any of these ways, we miss the point of today’s parables.
For one, Jesus is not saying it is better to sin rampantly and without abandon. Nor is Jesus saying that He prefers those that sin, over those who don’t.
He’s also not suggesting that sin exists only in a few people.
What he is suggesting is that it’s not a competition.
Now, competition is a natural thing. Born with free will and intellect, we become innovative, and innovation creates competition. Competition creates status, a pecking order, an hierarchy … someone in your mind who is better than you in some way, or someone who you think you are better than, in some way. Not kept in check, competition can become unhealthy.
Being competitive can lead to being bothered by the word _ sin. Because at some point in time, someone probably told us that_ they didn’t sin. That means they are saying, they are better than you. And in our competitive minds, that cannot stand. And you’re right, that cannot stand. Because the only person who has not sinned is …? (Anyone?)
That’s right, Jesus. And Jesus _ is _ God. And are any of us better than God?
No. So, everybody sins.
So, if we agree that everyone sins _ and that we are all on an even playing field _ consider that each of us at some point in time (and it doesn’t matter how many times) are the subjects of today’s parables. Each of us is the lost coin. Each of us is the lost sheep.
And every time we repent, there is a party in heaven.
But there’s one last problem. If there’s a party in my honor, shouldn’t I be there? That sounds reasonable. But trust me, there will be an invitation at some point.
In the meantime, God’s love commits us here. And to love means not competing in the game of judging who is the bigger sinner. Because some days, you are the shepherd. Some days you are the sheep.
Some days, things taste perfectly for you. Some days taste bitter when a sinner, a lost sheep is having a perfect day, and on those days _ don’t muddle about it. Talk to God about it.
Tell Him why this is annoying you and pray for guidance to lead you away from unhealthy competition.
Our Book of Common Prayer has a prayer for many occasions. The one for loving our enemies may suffice when this happens.
It reads, “O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth: deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.“
So you see, all equal. No competition. All loved.
Amen.
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Take A Giant Step with God
(A sermon for Luke 9:51-62 Presented at Christ Christ, Bordentown, NJ, June 28-29, 2025)
Dealing with change is an unusual thing, wouldn’t you say? We can voluntarily change some things. Other times, change occurs without our consent. In both cases, we can have either a happy or not-happy emotional reaction to the change.
For example, you voluntarily buy a lottery ticket. You win by chance a billion dollars. You can now live comfortably but also you choose to spend a lot on luxury items. Add in a few bad investment choices, and before you know it, those winnings disappear. More bills are due than you can pay, and you have to declare bankruptcy and are forced to live in a van down by the river. Like I said, some changes you choose, some you don’t. Some make you happy, some don’t.
So we’re always in a situation of change, and we’re always trying to control change. For the most part, the changes we experience generally center around rules…rules of order, and how some rules disappear, and new ones emerge.
When we get married or add children, we’re merging someone else’s rules with our own. When the weather rains out a day on the beach, nature’s rules collide with our own. Or when someone ghosts you or gives you the silent treatment, there’s now a bunch of unknown rules.
Whatever the circumstances, it’s not as if we have a problem with change in of itself, it’s what it’s changing to is the concern. What will the new rules be and can I abide by them?
Thus when new rules are presented, we sometimes dig our heels in and resist, and sometimes we have faith and trust that the outcome will be in our favor.
Today’s Gospel gives us two tales that demonstrate reactions to new rules.
The first is the Samarian village that won’t receive Jesus. They perceive that Jesus is just using Samaria as a rest stop on his way to Jerusalem. The Samaritans’ rift with Jerusalem goes back centuries, and their religious practices and beliefs, though similar to those of the Jews, were different in some important respects. They did not recognize any writings of the prophets, and their expectation is that the future messiah will restore the faith on Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem.
Despite Jesus’ efforts to spend time with the Samaritans, and provide them with the new rules of His teachings, they dig their heels in. But as we know, this is only temporary and Jesus will return to them for future conversion.
And then you have James and John (the sons of thunder, who want to in a categorical fashion rain down fire on the Samaritans). Jesus teaches them that in their partnership with Him, they will need to put their feelings of ill will aside and show compassion in the face of those rejecting him.
In the other tale, Jesus encounters three folks who want to follow his rules. But they have other rules they want to follow too. And now He contends specifically with their expectations of merging their old rules with Jesus’ new rules.
The first person is told by Jesus that if you follow Him, you cannot always expect the choice to align with your earthly desires of comfort.
The second person who wants to bury his father and provide a customary funeral is given a choice. Be a disciple of God, or stay with the spiritually dead that don’t follow the new rules.
The third person tells Jesus, “I’ll be back after I finish a few things at home”. Jesus responds there is no going back.
All five examples, particularly the last three, portray Jesus as almost aloof. “You want to follow me, great. If not, suit yourself.” But his reactions instead point to a level of discipleship that is more than just simply following. It’s a commitment to Jesus’ new rules. And each person as a disciple, is left to discover within themselves what is causing them to resist.
Jesus as a leader was pointing to a Way. When we think more about Jesus’ notion of discipleship, it wasn’t to dismiss the importance of these other matters that we have _ but to show that one Way can be what matters the most _ and to give into that notion, and let the grace of God into your life. It will seem costly giving up your old rules. But the more you accept God into your life, to be there all day and every day, you will begin to recognize that it didn’t cost as much as what you gained in return.
As disciples and humans, when it comes to following Jesus, we at times will still dig our heels in and resist, and other times have complete faith and trust in God’s Way.
But during times of resistance, think about following Jesus like playing the lottery. It takes the simple task of buying the ticket and taking a giant step of faith. The difference is that every ticket is the winning ticket. And as long as you remain steadfast, diligent, and wise, you’ll get to enjoy those winnings for the rest of your life.
Amen.
and now for a song that inspired this sermon …
Wired For Faith 
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