All Souls Parish Sermons episodes:

• August 31, 2025Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

  The Rev. Phil Brochard

  The sermon reflects on Jesus’s teaching about humility and hospitality at

  the banquet table. Using both a local community dinner and modern debates

  on immigration as illustrations, it critiques zero-sum thinking and

  exclusionary attitudes. The preacher emphasizes that seats at God’s table

  are given by invitation, not entitlement, and urges the congregation to

  notice who is missing from their own tables. The gospel calls for radical

  hospitality, ensuring that the vulnerable and marginalized are included,

  for the feast is incomplete until all are welcomed.

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• August 24, 2025Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Emily Boring

  The sermon reflects on Jesus healing a woman bent for eighteen years, an

  act of liberation chosen for the Sabbath to reveal God’s unconditional

  freedom. The synagogue leader’s objection highlights the depth of Sabbath’s

  role in Jewish identity, but also the danger of letting rules or ego

  restrict God’s presence. We, too, often bind ourselves with conditions on

  when and how God can act. Yet Jesus reminds us that God’s healing love

  moves beyond human control, inviting us to loosen our limiting beliefs and

  live into true Sabbath freedom.

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• August 17, 2025Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers

  A Wednesday Eucharist at All Souls centers on shared reflection and the

  commemoration of saints, drawing strength from the church’s “great cloud of

  witnesses” in Hebrews—figures like Abraham and Rahab whose faith shows both

  triumph and suffering. All Souls ritualizes this memory at All Saints/All

  Souls and the Easter Vigil by naming the dead and processing with candles.

  In a tense political climate, the community acknowledges anxiety yet

  embraces Christian hope (as an inner orientation) and looks to Jesus, the

  pioneer and perfecter of faith, to persevere in love, justice, and mercy.

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• August 10, 2025Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Michael Lemaire

  The sermon explores Jesus’s warning about treasure and heart, noting that

  human desires often fail to satisfy or are overshadowed by fear of loss.

  Drawing on Luke’s gospel, the preacher shows how possessions promise false

  security, especially in the face of death. Jesus’s call to give them up is

  not punishment but preparation for life’s end, freeing us to live grounded

  in God’s unending love — the true treasure that brings lasting fulfillment.

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• August 03, 2025Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Rachel Dykzeul

  Mother Rachel explores Jesus’s parable of the rich fool, challenging the

  belief that life is defined by wealth. She asks how we measure “enough” and

  what we orient our lives around, critiquing capitalism’s drive for endless

  accumulation. Emphasizing that divine abundance is meant to be shared, she

  calls for compassionate self-reflection and urges us to use our resources

  to support God’s work of justice and peace.

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• July 27, 2025Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Emily Boring

  The sermon humorously critiques transactional views of religion by

  reflecting on a postcard naming the church a “top-rated customer

  satisfaction” site. It uses this to explore deeper meanings of prayer,

  particularly the Lord’s Prayer. Rather than a vending machine model of

  request and response, prayer is portrayed as grounded in need,

  vulnerability, and relationship with God. Jesus’s prayer emphasizes

  sustenance, forgiveness, and trust. The preacher acknowledges unanswered

  prayers and suffering, pushing back against empty “thoughts and prayers,”

  and instead encourages shameless, persistent trust in God amid life’s

  uncertainties.

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• July 20, 2025Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Phil Brochard

  This sermon challenges misreadings of the Mary and Martha story, rejecting

  the idea that contemplation and action are opposed or that one must be an

  archetype. It focuses instead on how Martha’s distraction—rooted in

  anxiety—distorts her hospitality, while Mary models the spiritual

  discipline of presence and unmixed attention. The preacher connects this to

  contemporary societal and personal distractions, urging the congregation to

  choose one relationship or action to remain present to this week, trusting

  that Christ is there.

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• July 13, 2025Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Rachel Dykzeul

  The sermon revisits the parable of the Good Samaritan, emphasizing its

  radical message in historical context: Jesus uses a despised outsider—the

  Samaritan—as the model of neighborly love. By helping a wounded man, the

  Samaritan upends religious and cultural norms. The preacher connects this

  message to modern examples of division—Palestinians and Israelis,

  immigrants and citizens, Democrats and Republicans—asking us to confront

  who we consider “the other.” The sermon concludes with the call to

  recognize those we most fear or despise as our neighbors and to act with

  divine compassion beyond boundaries.

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• July 06, 2025Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

  the Rev. Phil Brochard

  This sermon tells the story of a parishioner who, inspired by a conference

  on immigration, joined a 1,300-mile pilgrimage to ICE detention centers.

  She and other pilgrims traveled vulnerably, relying on church communities

  for food and shelter, embodying Jesus’ call to be sent without protection.

  The sermon links this vulnerability to Jesus' own journey to Jerusalem and

  shows how mutual hospitality and dependence are central to revealing God's

  Realm. Rather than leading through force, Jesus—and his followers—witness

  to love, transformation, and grace through radical humility.

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• June 29, 2025Third Sunday after Pentecost

  The Rev. Rachel Dykzeul

  This sermon celebrates Pride and God's inclusive love, emphasizing how

  transformative relationships—like mentorship and discipleship—can change

  our lives. Drawing on personal experience and scripture, it illustrates how

  spiritual transformation often happens gently over time through meaningful

  community. The call is to consciously respond to the Spirit’s invitation to

  be transformed, bearing the fruits of love, peace, and joy. Transformation

  isn't instant—it grows like fruit when we open ourselves to God's work.

  ...more

  

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