Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

"Belief in God and belief in the power of love is not for us an escape from suffering and is not for us an exit from real life. Belief in the power of love and the presence of God and belief in the transformative reality of Jesus Christ, his life and death and resurrection, does not get us a chance to opt out of reality. For the Christian, that's our beginning, our genesis."

"I think the real message here is to not let our stuff, or our concern about accumulating stuff, get in the way of our relationship with God. Those words come where Jesus says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If we let our stuff be our treasure, if we let our accumulation, if we let our success, if we let all of those worldly things be our treasure, then that gets in the way of our relationship with God."

"When Jesus talks about being ready for action, he's talking about being able to see God at work in the world at any given moment. He's talking about us acknowledging our own belovedness and belongingness to God so fundamentally, so clearly, so powerfully that we can't help but acknowledge other people's belovedness and belongingness. And we can't help but act for change in this world."

"You are the body of Christ. And you can pray with your feet. And you can pray with your hands. You, right now. And so, I ask you, as we acknowledge the sorrow and the pain and our own fear of violence in this country, what are you going to do about the violence in your country, in your community? You. What are you going to do to end white supremacy? What's your part in it? How will you work for reconciliation and love? How will you be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in this world?"

"When I get this angry, when I feel this kind of wrath against people who are perpetrating these kinds of crimes and threatening our safety, I get in a position where I'm creating an us and a them. There's me; peace-loving and fair-minded. And there's all of them; who are just angry and scared and doing all these terrible things. Paul reminds us that there is no more us and them. It's just us. We're all in this together. [...] And I know that together we can do something to change all this."

"So often these people, who do not remember their own children, they have no idea who I am or what I'm doing there, and they hear the words of the Lord's Prayer, will join right in. [This comes] from a life of shaping themselves by this way of prayer. The words that Jesus taught them will come because they've lived this attitude that Jesus taught them. They've prayed these words over and over and over and over again. To the point where they're second nature. They have this prayer written on their hearts, because they have used not just the words, but the attitude of prayer that Jesus was trying to teach."

"The Lord's Prayer is inscribed in our hearts. And, yes, we may wrestle with the language, we may even wrestle with the word "father." Sometimes the word "father" doesn't conjure up loving feelings for us. We may wrestle with a lot of different aspects and yet there is an underlying relationship with God revealed in that prayer, an underlying invitation to connect, to relate to God, to be present with God."

"If we find we find we always default to one, maybe we put our

toe a little bit in the water of the other. Maybe if where always the doer, maybe

we step back for just a minute and let someone else do. Maybe if we're always

seeking to be on the listening side, maybe we step forward a little bit. Maybe

we look to find the grace in both paths because there not opposite paths, they

all lead us to God."

"There's a place for Marys and there is a place for Marthas. I

don't just mean in this church or in this room, that we need some Marys, we need

some Marthas. There's a place for Mary and Martha in each one of us. None of us

should be just like Mary here in this story and none of should be just like Martha.

You shouldn't be doing all the work. You shouldn't just be studying your Bible

and doing no work."

"I do know this, as Beloved Community our lives are intricately

and intimately intertwined and infused with grace and mercy in a dance of life

and love with God in the lead."