St George's Sermon Blog

  John 14:1-14 So we are back today in the Gospel of John.   And our lectionary timeline has gone a little wonky again.   So we spent the first 3 weeks of the Easter season hearing stories that all took place basically on Easter day, then we took a weird detour off into the sheepfold for Good Shepherd Sunday last week and now we are going to travel back in time to right before Easter, to Maundy Thursday if you will, to the night of the Last Supper.   Where this week we get to hear the beginning of this very long speech that Jesus gives to his disciples the night before he is crucified.   It is his instructions to his disciples as he prepares them and all who will come after them for life together once he ceases to be there in the flesh with them.   And Jesus begins his long final talk with this disciples with a promise.   A very powerful promise.   Now Jesus doesn’t promise them what they might want or expect, he doesn’t promise them safety ...

  John 10:1-10 Today, this fourth Sunday of Easter is a wonderful little day each year where we get to celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday.   Every year we read Psalm 23 paired with a portion of John chapter 10 about shepherds and sheep.   And it is sometimes accompanied by all manner of interesting traditions.   I had one church where they brought in a live lamb every year or another where the children would dress up in sheep costumes and sing.   But don’t worry, I am not going to get up to any crazy shenanigans here this year, but we still do have to think a bit about shepherds and sheep today. As we should, because this image of the Lord as the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep is one of the most pervasive and beloved themes in the entire bible.    From the very beginning of the bible narrative, shepherds have played a key role.   The great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as Moses were all shepherds by trade, who shepherded Go...

  Luke 24:13-35 We have now reached the third week of the Easter season, but time passes slowly in the lectionary so believe it or not, our Gospel story for today still takes place on Easter Sunday.   Well Easter afternoon to be exact.   In fact, this story sandwiches itself neatly between the other stories we have heard from that fateful day over the last two weeks.   It takes place shortly after Mary and the women see the angels at the empty tomb, and if we read on, in the next few verses after the end of this story we would see that almost immediately after Cleopas and his friend return to Jerusalem, Jesus then appears to the apostles in the upper room in Luke’s version of last week’s story.   But here in the middle we get this beautiful story about Jesus’ journey with these two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And in Luke’s Gospel, these two guys are actually the first people to see Jesus alive, which is kind of amazing because they are not otherwise k...

  Well, Here We AreEaster 2 (C) – 2007 Mary K. Morrison Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Well, here we are again on Thomas Sunday. Good old doubting Thomas. Thomas could be the patron saint of modern people. Thomas was reported to have been a twin, and it’s possible he was an identical twin—as such, he would have known all about mistaken identity. He would have known how easy it is to be wrong about something, even when we see it with our own eyes. He couldn’t take the disciples’ word about having seen Jesus alive; he needed proof; he needed to be sure. Jesus says to Thomas,  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  That would be us. We didn’t make it to the empty tomb, didn’t see the angels, didn’t hear Jesus call us by name in the garden. We weren’t in the upper room with the other disciples when they got to see Jesus. When we hear the gospel stories, we sometimes identify with the characters in them. Are we like...

  Matt 28:1-10 Alleluia! Christ is risen!   He has risen indeed Alleluia! Today is the very best day of the church year.   It is a day to throw a party.   We walked the long wilderness road of Lent, we have sat in the quiet, we have listened and sung and prayed, and finally wilderness road has led us home.   And now it is time to celebrate, to cast off the burdens of Lent, to break out the flowers and the finery, to turn up the organ and bring back the alleluia songs, to eat and drink and give away candy and to sing as loud as you can.   And most importantly, today is the day we proclaim Christ’s victory over death for all to see and here. It is the day we tell the Easter story once again, where we proclaim that the tomb is empty and our Lord once crucified and dead has conquered death and been raised to new life.   And it is a day where we celebrate that through his death and resurrection Jesus opened the way to eternal life to all people. ...

  Matthew 21:2-11 Today is Palm Sunday.   The first day of Holy Week.   Today is the day that stands as bridge between the season of Lent and the deeper parts of Holy Week.   And this year, you will notice that things are just a bit different.   Usually, the Palm parts of Palm Sunday are only a few minutes long, with the day shifting pretty quickly away from the festivity of the Palm procession to the reading of the Passion story which we also usually do on this day.   Shouts of ‘Hosanna’ turn quickly to shouts of ‘Crucify Him’.   But in this our season in the wilderness, we are going to take things a little bit slower this year.   Because the Palms are important too.   The path out of the wilderness is nearly as important as where it ultimately leads.   And so, we are joining our friends in Massachusetts and in other Episcopal congregations around the country in participating in the trial use of a new Palm Sunday liturgy which moves...