St George's Sermon Blog

Luke 1:39-56 So I told you all last month that we had finished our Season of Women and it was all wrapped up.   But it turns out I lied.   Because I made an error, I missed something critically important and so now we have to come back and correct it.   Because we spent this whole year talking about women leaders in the Bible.   And it was great, we saw women do all these amazing things, women who lead armies, women who toppled empires, women who taught and women who preached the good news. And women who sang songs that passed on the secrets of the world.   But we missed something, we missed half the story because it only works for women to sing the songs that change the world if there is someone to listen to them.   This only works if alongside the women who lead, there are women (and men) who are willing to listen, to follow, to make space, to offer support and refuge, even when it is costly, or dangerous or hard. So today, in the midst of this beauti...

  Advent 3 (C) God’s Joy Is Justice by  The   Rev. Canon Whitney Rice [RCL] Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18   Today is the third Sunday of Advent, traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word meaning “rejoice,” and the origin of this name for the third Sunday of Advent comes from the beginning of our reading from Philippians today: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” Advent is actually a penitential season like Lent, something many people don’t realize. Just like how in Lent we use the time to prepare for Easter and reflect on things like our mortality and sin, we do the same in Advent to prepare for Christmas. Thinking about how much we need Jesus helps us get ready to welcome and greet him. It makes the contrast between the penitential season and the major feast leading to a festal season all the greater, and our joy at Christmas and Easter all the brighter. That’s why we light the...

  Luke 3:1-6 We are getting to the time of year when we are entering truly into the already and not yet portion of the Advent season.   We are really in the meaty middle of this season of preparation and waiting.   And this to me is always an anxiety provoking time of year.   Christmas is surely well on the way, just a little over two weeks until the big day, but still too far out for anything to feel complete or certain.   It is a time where preparations are ramping up but also when the possible cracks begin to show.   Where you find out that that family member might have to change plans and miss the celebration or that gift you really wanted in sold out or you just aren’t feeling up to doing that one thing you usually do every year.   So how are we to prepare for the coming of our prefect savior when we start to realize that everything might not end up being so perfect after all? Luckily our readings this week are here to help us do just that. ...

  Luke 21:25-36 Today is the start of the season of Advent.  It is a time of waiting and anticipation here in the church, a time where we gather, light candles, and prepare for the coming of our Lord.  It is meant to be a time of quiet and meditation and even penitence.    Meanwhile out in the commercial world, the opposite is going on.   We are already deep into the Christmas season which starts probably in late October, ends December 25 th and where it is supposedly our patriotic American duty to spend as much money as possible and do as many things as possible in as short a time as possible not matter how busy, stressed or broke it makes you.   This season of Christmas becomes a frenzied time of shopping, decorating, visiting and cooking for the grand now almost entirely secular Holiday Season, which has little to nothing to do with the birth of our Lord or anything religious. And add in all the craziness going on in the world around us right n...