St George's Sermon Blog

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 Today is the Festival of the Holy Trinity.   The only week in the entire church year devoted to a doctrine of the church.   It is a festival devoted to entirely to an idea.   Unlike most of the commemorations of the church year which focus on specific events in the life of Christ or biblical events in the history of the church, Holy Trinity Sunday focus on the doctrine of the Trinity, the concept of God as Three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit united together as a single undivided God.   But the Trinity is complex, confusing and always shrouded in mystery.     We struggle to find language to even describe much less understand the nature of the Trinity.   Countless books and seminary classes and sermons and lectures have been devoted to the topic, yet many of us still struggle to understand how God can be three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and yet still one God.   And I was bad at my Systematic Theol...

  John 14:8-17 Today is the great festival of Pentecost in the church.   One of a handful of major festivals that shape the whole of the church year.   It is the birthday of the church, the festival of the Holy Spirit.   But it is also one the grates a bit against Episcopalian sensibilities.   Because quite frankly Pentecost can be a little intimidating.   I mean just look at the story, rushing wind, tongues of fire, people suddenly and impulsively speaking in foreign languages, generally making a public spectacle of themselves.   Maybe that is why this is a holiday where we tend to keep our celebrations smaller.   Anyone can handle Christmas and Easter.   They deal with discrete historical events, events that perhaps most importantly happened to someone else.   We can easily sit by and stand as silent witnesses to the events of Jesus’s birth, life and death, but not Pentecost.   In a world full of spectator events, Pentecost is a...

  Acts 16:16-40; John 17:20-26 Now I must confess, I did sort of a mean thing to you all.   Last week we talked about the conversion of Lydia and start of Paul’s ministry in Philippi.   And I made it sound so fun and easy.   I told you all you have to do is show up and God will do the work, the Holy Spirit will change the world.   And that is absolutely true.   But what I didn’t tell you last week is that sometimes showing up is hard.   Sometimes showing up is dangerous.   Sometimes showing up can be deadly. Because Paul’s story in Philippi doesn’t end with Lydia’s conversion.   Her and her household are baptized and they invite Paul and Silas to stay with them.   And it was fine at first because Lydia wasn’t actually from Philippi and her household weren’t actually Romans and who really cares what a woman does.   But then before too long all hell breaks loose.   And that is our story today, what happens when Paul decides to ...

  Act 16:9-16, John 14:23-29 Our journey in Acts continues this week, and much like the book of Acts itself we have been alternating back and forth between stories about Peter and stories about Paul.   So this week we turn our attention back to Paul.   And he has come a very long way since we last encountered him on the road to Damascus.   Several years have passed and he has spent time and learned alongside the other disciples in Antioch and Jerusalem and had quite a bit of success traveling among the synagogues of Syria and Turkey and founding churches there. And then in today’s episode, Paul suddenly has a vision for spreading his mission into mainland Greece, so he and a couple of his friends head out and set sail to the city of Philippi.   Now this may seem pretty normal to us, but in reality, sailing off to Philippi was a pretty radical choice.   Philippi was nothing like the Greek cities in Syria and Turkey where Paul had recently been founding c...

  So the story I told you from 2 weeks ago about Peter baptizing the first gentile believers is back again in our readings this week.   And the I told you this story from Acts then as an example of how Peter had to keep learning and growing even after the resurrection.   We know that Peter was an imperfect leader, that he wasn’t always open to change.   And he wasn’t meant to be.   What is important is that Peter kept trying, kept learning, kept following Jesus.   And that Jesus kept working on and with Peter to further the Gospel even after his return to heaven. And now this week, we hear of what comes of all that work.   And the little passage we heard today in Acts 11 is actually a recap of Acts chapter 10.   And I am actually really thankful the lectionary authors gave us this version of the story.   First of all because the version in Acts 10 is 48 verses long, and if we had to read the whole thing, the poor lector might pass out. ...

  John 21:1-19 I know we like to spend a lot of time talking about women leaders in the church, but this week we are going to take some time instead to talk about the men who Jesus chooses to be leaders in his church.   Specifically, two very important men, Peter and Paul. The first great public leaders of the church.   Between them they really were the two most authoritative voices in the early church.   Peter with his work in Jerusalem and the surrounding regions and Paul with his groundbreaking ministry to the gentile peoples across the empire in Turkey, Greece and eventually as far as Rome.   They both converted thousands, founded dozens of churches, wrote letters so instructive and important we still read them today and laid the foundations that allowed he church of Jesus Christ to survive, grow and thrive into a community of faith that has sustained billions of people for more than 2000 years.   These were undeniably great leaders who accomplished a...