Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

"Our repentance, our ability to acknowledge wrong doing, our need to examine ourselves – is not about becoming better people, and it's not about living into shame. It is the first step for those who know we are loved. It's the first step to living into the love we already know is there."

Revelation 1:4b-8

"In these times when things fall apart I think we’re also invited to be aware that these times are also invitations. That These times are also markers of something new that is arising – of something new that can come forth."

"Jesus insists that God is working in your life. Jesus insists that in the greatest joy and in the deepest sorrow God is birthing new truth. Jesus insists that even when you do not know what is next God is bringing real love into being. He insists on it... he lives for it... he dies for it."

Mark 13:1-8

"These stories of the widows give us a glimpse of faithfulness. The people around us – how they live their lives – give us a glimpse of faithfulness too. Let us ask ourselves, how are we invited to obedience, to faithfulness? And, let us enjoy, let us celebrate, the gift of that faithfulness now."

1 Kings 17:8-16

Mark 12:38-44

"Forgiveness is not something you do, forgiveness is something into which you live. And, we spend the rest of our lives as Christians learning this kind of forgiveness – learning how to forgive ourselves, learning how to forgive others, learning how to draw ourselves closer to God in Jesus. That is the act, the work, the life of forgiveness.”

Mark 12:38-44

"We were made for a purpose. We were made to love God and to love our neighbor. We were built by God to do those things. That's why those are our two greatest commandments. It’s like telling a hammer that, 'you have to drive nails.’ Well, of course! That’s what the hammer was made to do. We have been made to love. We have been made by love, to love."

Mark 12:28-34

"It’s not just about following a bunch of rules, and at the end of these rules you will solve the riddle or the mystery and you will get where you need to go and your reward is heaven. [Jesus] is saying that if you are able to recognize love as the greatest authority in the world, in the history of all creation, if you are able to understand God and God’s love as that which brings us into being and gives us purpose, and if you are able to look at this world with the same love with which God looks at this world through Jesus Christ… if you can look at the world that way then you are so close to God. How close? As close as you can imagine. You are breathing God."

Mark 12:28-34

"Jesus looks at us so that we can be seen, and through being seen we can see others. Jesus listens to us so that we can be heard, and by being heard we can learn to hear others. Jesus loves us back into connection and relationship, and from the safety and the health and the warmth of that love we are able to love magnificently... miraculously. We are able to love like Jesus loves."

Mark 10:46-52

"We have our limits. We cannot change the world from where we sit, but we can connect with each other. We can see those moments where an act of kindness on our part can make a difference for a family, for an individual, even for a community. Seeing these moments, it isn’t an eye thing, its not a physical vision thing. It’s a heart thing… seeing with our hearts."

Mark 10:46-52

“You participate as the way of serving the people. This is the kind of work that God calls us to do – to go out and serve in civic and our personal life, in our work, in our homes… to go and be a servant. And, the greatest among us are servants of all."

Mark 10:35-45