Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

Rev. Phil opens the sermon with Fred Craddock’s story about a wrath-focused preacher being removed from the pulpit, highlighting the line, “We’re real mean SOBs, but we refuse to believe that God is meaner than us,” to challenge fear-based interpretations of Jesus’ parables. Preaching on the parable of the wheat and weeds, he argues that God does not make “weeds” because every person bears God’s image, and that the parable describes life on earth rather than speculation about the afterlife. He emphasizes three points: Jesus acknowledges the reality of evil and real suffering; human beings are not qualified to perfectly identify and eliminate evil because they will uproot good along with harm, and that Christians are called to love as Jesus did by tending what is healing and nourishing rather than sorting people as good or evil. He concludes with hope for those harmed or marginalized that evil cannot win and God’s children will shine like the sun.

In a sermon on the parable of the sower (Matthew 13), Rev. Phil admits struggling with the text because it can trigger fear about being the “right kind of soil” and even judging others, a fear rooted in being taught that God might reject people for imperfection. Reframing the parable through Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, God’s kingdom of grace, mercy, healing, justice, and reconciliation; Rev. Phil argues Jesus is not threatening people but describing varied human responses to the truth that all are loved and included in God’s plan. The focus is not on perfect soil but on the sower who spreads God’s love indiscriminately, showing God’s unconditional faithfulness. Though people may be different “soils” day to day, Jesus remains faithful. A practical invitation is to soften the heart by loving people as they are, treating them as made in God’s image without demanding they “get it.”

This sermon by Rev. Joanna Leiserson, based on readings from Zechariah, Romans, Matthew, and Psalm 145, reflects on Jesus’ critique of “this generation” that judges by outward expectations and offers rest to the weary. Rev. Joanna describes how cultural standards enforced by elites and influencers can be exhausting, focusing especially on the cosmetics industry and how makeup upholds norms of beauty tied to whiteness, racism, sexism, and conditional self-worth. As an example of liberation from these burdens, Rev. Joanna recounts Scott Vincent Borba, a successful cosmetics CEO who felt empty, prayed for help, gave away his $3 billion fortune to charity, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest, finding joy and purpose serving the poor. Rev. Joanna urges embracing Jesus’ lighter yoke of love, rejecting “spiritual makeup,” and loving especially the marginalized, sharing a personal story of being accepted without makeup after cataract surgery and feeling decades of shame lifted.

The Rev. Philip DeVaul delivers a sermon from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer that reflects on difficult sayings of Jesus in Matthew 10 about being “worthy” and the divisions that can arise even within families. He argues these harsh words make sense in context: Jesus’ whole ministry proclaims that God is present, faithful, and that every person is made in God’s image, known, loved, and belongs. Jesus heals and welcomes without requiring a creed, showing God loves everybody. But making love the center of life and insisting on everyone’s belonging confronts social hierarchies and can create enemies and conflict, including family rejection. Jesus warns that following him will transform lives, challenge beliefs, prejudices, and loyalties, and may be uncomfortable, yet nothing should block knowing one’s belovedness or recognizing it equally in others.

… the word threshold? I found myself really resonating with that this week, and I asked people what their understanding of the words were.

A friend of mine who works with wood said, "Oh, a threshold, that's that thin piece of wood between one room and another. It's in a doorway and you walk past it each time you move from room to room." Another one talked about how a threshold frequently involves sacrifice. To be able to pass through something to move forward, we frequently have to be willing to let go of something else. And my trainer, my very patient trainer, talked to me about a threshold being when you reach that, that level of your performance where you just can't go any further.

In a Trinity Sunday sermon at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Rev. Dr. Herschel Wade reflects on Genesis, Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians, and Matthew 28:16–20, arguing that the Trinity is not abstract doctrine but God’s living reality inviting people into divine communion: Creator as promise, Christ as fulfillment, and Spirit as continued presence. Interpreting the Great Commission on the mountain, he emphasizes that the Church participates in God’s mission and that baptism in the singular “name” incorporates believers into the triune life, redefining identity beyond fear, empire, or despair. He connects the Trinity’s mutual, self-giving love to resisting domination, racism, and dehumanizing systems, notes that worship and doubt can coexist, and ends with Jesus’ promise of abiding presence and a call to live God’s love together.

Today's preacher, Anny Stevens Gleason, prays for God’s Spirit, then reflects on Jesus’ festival proclamation, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,” linking it to a crowded water ceremony remembering Israel’s wilderness thirst and God providing water from the rock. Jesus’ words are framed as relational and about belonging: people thirst for connection even when surrounded, unseen, or valued only for usefulness. Gleason shares personal experience of trying to earn belonging through productivity and self-curation, finding instead that belonging came by showing up authentically, being witnessed by her fiancée Katie, and held by community. “Living water” is described as Spirit-filled mercy, courage, and love—not endless availability or self-exhaustion. The sermon connects this to baptism and Eucharist as sacraments of belonging, especially for Michael Edward Eslinger, baptized before achieving or proving anything, and closes with congregational reflections on freely given love and mutual longing for relationship with Jesus.

This Sunday sermon asks what we want to be true for the world and for those we love after we are gone, noting how people often focus on being remembered, while Jesus, nearing death and speaking intentionally to his closest friends, prays instead that his followers would be one. This “oneness” is not about shared labels, forced agreement, or making everyone Christian, since people can share a religion and still commit terrible violence; rather, it is unity like that between Jesus and the Father—love, mutuality, respect, dignity, and belonging. The preacher says God’s desire is communities where no one is left out or treated as “the other,” and where God’s image is recognized in every person. Jesus’ Ascension is celebrated because it shows God’s faith in people, who are trusted through the Holy Spirit to do God’s work, so God is never gone and we are never alone.