Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast. We hope you enjoy listening to this and our other podcasts. You can find more information at www.knoxvilleascension.org or by emailing [email protected].

The Gospel: Mark 10:2-16

Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Stewardship Sermon – Church of the Ascension 10-7-18.  PJW

I wonder: what are the things in your life that put a lump in your throat?

Can you identify times when you were minding your own business and all of a sudden a memory of a beloved friend or family member took you to a completely different time and place?

Or a time when you were focused on getting a task completed and a child, or a pet, or song playing in another room made you stop and realize that the oh-so important task wasn’t as important as you thought?

Does that happen often in your life?

Here’s another way to put the question:

Is there any one place you can count on that can consistently keep you centered on the things that have value in life, the things that touch you at your deepest places?

Is there any one place that you can always count on to give you a vision, however brief, of the way the world should be but is not? (as Frederick Buechner puts it)

While certain kinds of art or music other media might put a lump in our throats sometimes, and while Facebook photos might remind us of special people who are or were in our lives, and while every so often we are able prioritize people and things we love over tasks to be accomplished, I think that the place that is most likely to give us a vision of the way the world should be but is not is the church.

And when I say church, I mean the gathered community of people who come together to worship God in Jesus Christ.

For us in particular, this means Church of the Ascension.

But there is a bit of a problem in saying that, because when we put so much stock into the church’s ability to hold up the vision of the way the world should be, we then get so disappointed in it when it acts like the world often is.

Cynicism. Disagreement. Arguments. Brokenness. Bad behavior. Sin.

The list could go on, and we often see the institution of the church at its worst played across the headli

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast, your source of news and inspiration from The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tennessee, for this week’s episode of The TEA with GiGi and Andrew. You can find this and sermon podcasts on the Ascensioncast channel. For more information, visit www.knoxvilleascension.org, or email [email protected].

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast. We hope you enjoy listening to this and our other podcasts. You can find more information at www.knoxvilleascension.org or by emailing [email protected]. Note: There is not a sermon text for this episode.

The Gospel: Mark 9:30-37

Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast, your source of news and inspiration from The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tennessee, for this week’s episode of The TEA with GiGi and Andrew. You can find this and sermon podcasts on the Ascensioncast channel. For more information, visit www.knoxvilleascension.org, or email [email protected].

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast. We hope you enjoy listening to this and our other podcasts. You can find more information at www.knoxvilleascension.org or by emailing [email protected]. Note: There is not a sermon text for this episode.

The Gospel: Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast. We hope you enjoy listening to this and our other podcasts. You can find more information at www.knoxvilleascension.org or by emailing [email protected]. Note: There is not a sermon text for this episode.

The Gospel:

Mark 7:24-37

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast, your source of news and inspiration from The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tennessee, for this week’s episode of The TEA with GiGi and Andrew. You can find this and sermon podcasts on the Ascensioncast channel. For more information, visit www.knoxvilleascension.org, or email [email protected].

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast, your source of news and inspiration from The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tennessee, for this week’s episode of The TEA with GiGi and special guest, Gracie Dover. You can find this and sermon podcasts on the Ascensioncast channel. For more information, visit www.knoxvilleascension.org, or email [email protected].

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast. We hope you enjoy listening to this and our other podcasts. You can find more information at www.knoxvilleascension.org or by emailing [email protected].

The Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

When the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

in vain do they worship me,

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Sermon for Proper 17B  9-2-18 Church of the Ascension PJW

The Poet/songwriter Don McLean was perhaps most famous for his song “American Pie” which was a kind of anthem for the 1970’s. He also wrote another little song which was not quite as well known, a song called “Vincent”, which was about the artist Vincent Van Gogh.

The song begins like this:

Starry Starry Night

Paint your palette blue and gray

Look out on a summer’s day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees and the daffodils

Catch the breeze and the winter chills

in colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me

How you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen they did not know how

Perhaps they’ll listen now.

Vincent Van Gogh sold just one painting in his lifetime for a very small amount of money. Now, of course, his paintings sell for millions of dollars, but during his lifetime he was considered a radical, a troublemaker, and a failure, a strange painter whose use of bold strokes and bright colors was unorthodox and uncouth. No one understood Vincent, because artists in the late 19th century used muted colors and short, smooth strokes in the paintings. And technique, doing things the correct way, was extremely important to them.

They were not ready for someone like Vincent, who saw the world differently, with eyes that saw the darkness in his own soul and in the souls of others, yet eyes that also saw the world as bright and hopeful. Vincent’s paintings reflecte

Thank you for tuning into Ascensioncast, your source of news and inspiration from The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tennessee, for this week’s episode of The TEA with GiGi and Andrew. You can find this and sermon podcasts on the Ascensioncast channel. For more information, visit www.knoxvilleascension.org, or email [email protected].