Trinity Cathedral Episcopal Church

John 20:19-31 A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens delivered April 16, 2023. Jesus did say to Thomas “do not doubt but believe” but when we take a …

John 20:19-31

A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens delivered April 16, 2023.

Jesus did say to Thomas "do not doubt but believe" but when we take a simplistic view of either doubt or belief then something expansive and generative gets downgraded to a crass dealbreaker.

"Either/or" thinking has made us perpetually insecure in our relationship with God and produced a religion fearful of anything that would suggest doubt or uncertainty or even free thinking. The worst sins of religion get committed when that need for certainty is brittle and unyielding.

When we are in a living relationship with something that is unknown or uncertain, doubt simply comes with the territory. It's part of a growing comfort with moving through the dark, learning to trust the grace and love of God when certainty and clarity of vision are hard to come by.

Doubt is fuel for faith: to have doubt is to have a living relationship with the unknown...and faith according to Thomas Merton means "integrating the known & the unknown into a living whole.

A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens on Easter Sunday, 2023 Joy is what comes when we move through the valley of death and come out the other …

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 A sermon preached by the Rev. Adrienne Koch on Maundy Thursday , April 6, 2023.

A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens on Easter Sunday, 2023

Joy is what comes when we move through the valley of death and come out the other side to find new life waiting for us. Joy is not just a happy feeling, but what happens to our whole bodies, our whole selves, when we live our lives as moving not towards death, but towards the greater life. Every moment we feel joy, it's like an eruption of realizing that life is really all about resurrection. Because of love, death is not the most powerful force in the universe. Because of love, we have new life. Because of love, we have joy. Even in the midst of the hardest of times, the love of God fills us with new life, and echoes with the hymns of joy.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

A sermon preached by the Rev. Adrienne Koch on Maundy Thursday , April 6, 2023.

A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens on Palm Sunday April 2023. If your means are violence, coercion, intimidation, or any other instrument that fails to respect the …

A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens on Palm Sunday April 2023.

If your means are violence, coercion, intimidation, or any other instrument that fails to respect the dignity of every human being, then you will be hard pressed to find any ends that truly justify the means.

Our means - our actions - say far more about our ends than any manifesto or vision statement. Choose your means wisely, then, for they determine not just your path, but your destination.

Suffering cannot just be cut away: we must go through it, we have to walk with one another when they are going through it. If we can't move towards suffering, then we'll just push it off onto others, and ultimately make it worse for ourselves.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Live by the gun, die by the gun, he would say to a nation willing to set human sacrifice on the altar of the second amendment. Six more in Nashville, 3 of them children. How Long, O Lord, How Long?

John 11:12-45 A sermon preached by the Rev. Adrienne Koch at Trinity Cathedral on March 23, 2023.

John 11:12-45

A sermon preached by the Rev. Adrienne Koch at Trinity Cathedral on March 23, 2023.