All Souls Parish Sermons episodes:

• April 05, 2026Easter Sunday!

  The Rev. Phil Brochard

  This Easter sermon contrasts the coercive power of empires with the

  life-giving power revealed in Jesus’s resurrection. Through the story of

  Jesus’s death and resurrection—marked by earthquakes and upheaval—the

  preacher argues that domination and violence do not have the final word.

  Instead, true power is found in sacrificial love, mercy, and life. Though

  difficult to trust and often contradicted by history, this power remains

  the deepest truth of the world, calling people to remember that love

  ultimately prevails over death.

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• April 04, 2026Great Vigil of Easter

  The Rev. Emily Boring

  This Easter sermon explores resurrection not as a distant historical event

  but as a living, transformative experience. Through Mary Magdalene’s

  encounter with the risen Christ, it highlights how hope emerges even in

  deep grief and invites believers to recognize resurrection in their own

  lives. Rather than clinging to past experiences, the sermon calls the

  community to carry forward the love and transformation of Easter into the

  world, becoming the living embodiment of that hope.

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• April 03, 2026Good Friday

  The Rev. Michael Lemaire

  The sermon asks whether Jesus died a “good death,” concluding that although

  his death was painful and humiliating, it was “good” because it aligned

  with his life’s purpose of self-giving love. In contrast to a culture that

  fears and tries to control death, the sermon argues that humans are called

  to live lives of self-giving love rather than self-preservation. By

  practicing love and sacrifice throughout life, death becomes not something

  to fear but the final act of returning to God. Jesus’ death models this way

  of living—and dying.

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• April 02, 2026Maundy Thursday

  Annie Hayes

  On the night before his death, Jesus chooses to wash his disciples’ feet—an

  intimate, humble act that redefines power and belonging in God’s kingdom.

  This “foolish” love becomes both a gift and a command: the disciples are to

  receive it and then embody it by loving others in the same way. As Jesus

  prepares to leave, he entrusts his mission to them, declaring through his

  actions that they are now his body in the world. The sermon calls listeners

  to step into this ongoing work of healing and service, living out Christ’s

  love in tangible ways.

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• March 30, 2026Palm Sunday: Sunday of the Passion

  The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers

  The sermon explores Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem as a subversion

  of worldly power. While it mirrors royal processions, Jesus enters humbly

  on a donkey, fulfilling prophecy and embodying a different kind of kingship

  rooted in peace and self-giving love. The preacher connects this act to

  modern nonviolent protest movements that challenge injustice, while also

  emphasizing that Jesus’s path leads not to immediate victory but to

  suffering and the cross. Palm Sunday thus invites reflection on humility,

  resistance, and the deeper meaning of true power.

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• March 23, 2026Fifth Sunday in Lent

  The Rev. Emily Boring

  This sermon reflects on grief, resurrection, and divine love through the

  story of Lazarus. While Christian tradition offers powerful language for

  mourning, faith does not remove the pain of loss. Like Mary and Martha, we

  are invited to bring honest grief before God. Jesus reframes resurrection

  not as a distant future event but as a present reality grounded in

  relationship with God. The sermon concludes that death, while painful,

  often reveals the depth of love—and that love ultimately endures beyond

  death because it is rooted in God.

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• March 15, 2026Fourth Sunday in Lent

  The Rev. Phil Brochard

  The sermon connects a story from All Souls about recognizing a formerly

  homeless man who had transformed his life with the Gospel story of the man

  born blind in John 9. After gaining sight, the healed man is no longer

  recognized by his neighbors because they had always defined him by his

  blindness. The passage highlights a deeper theme of spiritual perception:

  while the healed man gradually perceives who Jesus is, those around him

  refuse to see the truth.

  Using the concept of “difficult knowledge,” the sermon explores how people

  often resist truths that challenge established beliefs or systems. Such

  resistance can appear as rejection, certainty from those in power,

  scapegoating, or avoidance. The healed man models a different

  response—listening, curiosity, and openness to transformation.

  When the man is expelled from the synagogue for acknowledging Jesus, Christ

  seeks him out and finds him. The sermon concludes that difficult truths may

  lead to conflict or exclusion, but they ultimately set people free, and

  Christ accompanies those who are cast out for seeing what others cannot.

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• March 08, 2026Third Sunday in Lent

  The Rev. Rachel Dykzeul

  The sermon reflects on a world divided by conflict and identity politics,

  using the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman as a model for crossing

  human boundaries. The historical hostility between Jews and Samaritans

  illustrates how deeply communities can exclude one another.

  Drawing on Miroslav Volf’s theology of “exclusion and embrace,” the sermon

  describes reconciliation as an embodied process: opening oneself in

  vulnerability, waiting for response, embracing the other, and then allowing

  both people to remain transformed yet distinct.

  Jesus models this radical openness by crossing into Samaria and initiating

  connection with someone his society rejected. His actions reveal that he is

  not a regional Messiah but the sustaining light for the entire world.

  The sermon concludes by inviting listeners, especially during Lent, to

  resist tribal divisions and instead practice the courageous act of

  embracing those whom society labels as “other.”

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• March 01, 2026Second Sunday in Lent

  The Rev. Phil Brochard

  The preacher begins with the joyful discovery of a marble run sculpture at

  the Albany Bulb, where freeing a clogged channel of marbles led to a sudden

  cascade of movement and sound. This becomes a metaphor for spiritual

  awakening.

  The sermon then explores why Nicodemus, a religious leader, comes to Jesus

  by night. His confusion about being “born again” reflects the limits of

  linear logic. Jesus’ teaching points instead to being born anew—open to

  ongoing revelation. The story of Thomas Aquinas, who stopped writing after

  a profound encounter with God, underscores that theology, though important,

  is not the same as divine experience.

  Nicodemus’ later appearances—culminating in his public act of burying

  Jesus—show quiet transformation. Like the freed marbles, something in him

  is released. The sermon invites believers to remain open, to risk new

  paths, and to allow God’s Spirit to move them into new perception and

  courage.

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• February 23, 2026First Sunday in Lent

  The Rev. Emily Boring

  Using the image of hovering over a deep ocean drop-off, the sermon explores

  human longing as a boundary between the finite and the infinite. Reframing

  Adam and Eve and Jesus in the wilderness as two responses to hunger, the

  preacher suggests that longing itself is not sin. Adam and Eve grasp to

  eliminate their limits, leading to alienation. Jesus inhabits his hunger

  with trust and dependence on God. Lent becomes a season to examine our own

  longings—not to suppress them, but to let them draw us into deeper

  relationship with the infinite source who alone can hold them.

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