St. Barnabas Episcopal Lafayette Sermons: Recent Episodes
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As many of you know, I am a movie buff. I love watching Turner Classic Movie channel and seeing the true classic movies, as well as those that are classically bad. In all of my movie watching, I have become more and more aware of how well great directors tell stories, and how poorly bad directors do. Around Halloween this year, TCM aired a bunch of old horror films, and frankly there were some of the mid 70’s Dracula films that made me say; “I’m sorry. That was just too hard to swallow. Even in the ‘monster movie genre,’ I cannot believe the plot of that story.”
I started thinking about the phenomenon of unbelievable stories, as I was preparing for Christmas services. In the year 2017, when virtually everyone in this church over the age of about 12, has a device in his or her pocket or purse that allows communication of any thought or idea to almost anyone, anywhere, instantly; when the internet allows anyone to do research on any topic, just by typing it into Go [...]
Have you ever seen a painting of The Annunciation – that moment where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that God was entering her life in a very new and very unusual way? Well, I took to Google this week and started looking at all of the paintings of this event, some by masters and others by folks who painted in relative obscurity. What I found, really did not surprise me much, but it was still interesting. Because what I found was that the vast majority of these artistic representations do not come anywhere near showing how I truly believe the event of Gabriel’s visitation would have looked.
First thing is: most of these paintings show Mary to be a grown woman. We know from our study of ancient Palestine and ancient Jewish custom, that most women – girls really – married at a very young age. The rabbis of the day held the opinion that twelve was an acceptable age for the girl to be engaged – and that thirteen was a good marrying age. Very few of the paintings s [...]
This is Gaudete Sunday – the 3rd Sunday in Advent. This Sunday gets its name from the fact that it is a day of celebration, and Gaudete is Latin for rejoice. The fact that this is the Advent Sunday of unrestrained rejoicing, is marked by – among other things – the rose-colored candle that we lit this morning. It is not as deep and dark in color as the violet candles that surround it. But, you may be wondering, “Why are we rejoicing on this Sunday in any way that differs from other Sundays?” Glad you asked.
For more than the first thousand years of its existence, the Church universal commemorated Advent in much the same way that it commemorates Lent. That is, it was a season of 40 days (not counting weekends) and the season – just like Lent – was marked by fasting and penitence as everyone repented and prepared for the coming of Jesus – both in the Nativity and through the 2nd[...]
Welcome to the first Sunday of a new Church year. On this first Sunday of Advent, our readings require some thought, before we can figure out if there is a pattern to them, an overall message that we should take away from them.
These readings call us to begin to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Christ child, the Christmas event, and at the same time, they call us to prepare for the second coming of Christ. In actuality, three things are being thrown at us simultaneously and we are asked to catch them all and to try to juggle them all, as we consider what we will do with them. So let’s get started.
First there is the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah. Today’s passage comes from a section of the his writings in which he was bemoaning the perception of the people that God was absent from the world. He says in the section we just heard,
O that (God) would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at (God’s) presen [...]
In the name of Jesus Christ, who will come again in glory, to judge the world. Amen
This is the last Sunday of the church year. Next Sunday begins a brand-new year with the season of Advent — the season of preparation, in which we prepare for the arrival of the Christ child. So why would we use this week before Advent to celebrate the festival of Christ the King, with all of these odd and worrisome readings? Quite simply, because of the Alpha and Omega — the circle of life — the beginning and the end. Next week we will look at the beginning of the story of Jesus, this week, we look at what Jesus tells us about the very end.
In this Gospel reading, Matthew tells us what Jesus has to say about the end of time or the second coming of Christ — in fancy biblical scholar terms, the parousia. Jesus says that He will return to the earth again. He will come in glory, with all the angels and will sit on the throne of righteousness. Notice the di [...]
In the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
In yesterday’s RenewalWorks group meeting, we were talking about the Bible, and how much – or how little – the congregation of St. Barnabas knows about it. At the risk of getting a little bit ahead of the RenewalWorks project, I will share with you that one of the things that we discovered in our survey is that the majority of the people in the pews every week do not believe that they know very much about the Bible. While on some level I believe that that finding is accurate, I also told the group that I believe that this congregation knows much more Bible than you think that you do.
Please believe me when I say that I am not going to call on anyone nor will I put anyone on the spot at all. But please raise your hand if you have heard the Parable of the Talents (that we just read, from Matthew’s Gospel) before. Now of all of you who raised your hand, raise it again if you feel like you have heard this [...]
This is an odd parable that we get from Matthew’s Gospel today, isn’t it? I mean, to begin with, Jesus’ parables almost always have a twist at the end that is designed to turn what we believe – about how the Kingdom of God works, and about who we are – upside down. Not so with this one. Some commentators refer to this one as an allegory rather than a parable, because you can just assign Jesus the part of bridegroom and all of us the bridesmaid roles, and then the story makes sense – and scares the bejeebers out of us. But you know what? I really don’t care one way or the other, and I bet you don’t either. What I want to know is: What does this really strange, and frankly somewhat off-putting parable have to say to all of us gathered here today?
Before we can figure that out, let me give you a bit context that might help.
The story tells us some details about wedding customs in Palestine a [...]
In the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
“A young priest who graduated from seminary just before World War I was appointed to a church in a very small town. He had been there only a couple of weeks when he received the call every new minister dreads: to do his first funeral.
The person who had died was not a member of his church. She was, in fact, someone with a very bad reputation. Her husband was a railroad engineer who was away from home much of the time. She rented rooms in their house to men who worked on the railroad, and “rumor had it” that she (earned a little extra money in the house) when her husband was away.
The young priest, faced with his first real challenge, could find no one with a good word to offer about this woman—until he entered the town’s small, … grocery store on the day before the funeral.
He began talking to the store owner about his sadness that the first person he would bury was to [...]
In the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
As a preacher, there are days where I read the slices of Scripture, the lectionary readings, that we get for the day (in case anyone ever asks you, the seminary word for such slices is, pericope) and I am amazed at how the chosen pericope for the day fits just perfectly with what my heart and soul tell me to preach. . . . And then, there’s today.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love this Gospel passage from Matthew. It has a lot to tell us about how Christians should settle disputes. And today, we also get the wonderful Passover story from Exodus. Those are great readings. But today, at St. Barnabas, we are embarking on a spiritual renewal program and a new year of church ministries, and we are about to baptize another wonderful baby boy, James Charles Capdepon. And frankly, those readings don’t really speak to this day, place, and time. So, let’s look at the Epistle to the Romans.
In Paul’s preemin [...]
Last week, I preached about the sin of racism in America today. At the risk of people believing that I will never preach about anything else, today’s Gospel – and the events of the intervening week – mean that we’re going to talk about it again.
Jesus said, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Who are the dogs in your life? Who is it in your world who is so inconsequential that they don’t rate being treated as well as you treat your friends and loved ones?
When Jesus was confronted by the woman in today’s Gospel story He responded in a way that is most uncharacteristic for the Jesus we’re used to. He and the disciples left the ever-growing crowds in Galilee a [...]
I do not often begin writing a sermon by having a title. That is just not how my process works. Not so today. Today, the title came first. This sermon is called: Beware of Sinners Judging Other Sinners, Especially With Finality. I readily admit that I stole that title directly out of one of the sources I was using to prepare for this. But that sentence just struck me between the eyes. It is exactly what I believe Matthew’s Gospel is saying to me today.
Today’s Gospel reading is sort of the sequel to last week’s Parable of the Sower. Today we hear Jesus teach the Disciples by giving them an allegory, instead of a regular parable. In today’s story there are absolute connections between the things in the story and the real world. You know … the sower is Jesus, the seeds are the children of God, the weeds are the children of the d [...]
Today’s Gospel is one of Jesus’ most famous stories. It is the parable of the Sower. Many of us have heard this passage so many times. The sower sows seeds all over the place and we get to figure out what happened to each bunch of seeds and why. In order to get much out of this parable, we probably ought to take a look at it — even though Jesus ostensibly explained it to the Disciples on the day that He told it.
When you think of someone sowing seeds, what picture do you get in your mind? In today’s America, it would be a huge machine that precisely places in seeds, equidistance apart, each in its separate hole. Or, if you go back a hundred and fifty years or so, you might see someone poking holes in the ground with a tool and placing seeds that way, or dropping seeds carefully into mule-plowed furrows. But what Jesus was talking about was none of that. He was talking about the kind where a guy with a [...]
Those of you who are FaceBook friends with me, know that I shared something on Friday, from the group who call themselves “Episcopal Memes.[1]” This one meme just seemed to really say something about the way I have been feeling, especially this week. The picture is one of John Coffey (the giant of a man who is a central figure in the Stephen King book and the Frank Darabont film that share the title of: The Green Mile.) John, who is clearly a Jesus figure in the story, looks out and says, “I’m tired boss. Mostly I’m tired of people being ugly to each other.”
I know that I am not telling you anything that you don’t know, when I say that the this week, congressman from New Orleans, Steve Scalise, Matt Mika, Zach Barth, Crystal Griner, and David Bailey, were all shot at a Republican legislators’ baseball practice. And on [...]
I have been playing guitar for over 50 years. For a few of those years, in my teens and early twenties, I played pretty seriously. By that, I mean that I practiced every day and got paid (sometimes) when I played. Throughout those years, I was primarily a rock/folk/country rhythm guitarist. That means that I played chords behind myself or someone else who was singing, or someone who was playing the lead part on guitar or keyboard. But in recent years, I decided to teach myself to play blues on guitar. And that is when I discovered something. Human beings cannot be taught to play the blues. For sure, you can learn to play the notes and patterns of notes that make up what are known as blues “licks.” But you cannot be taught to play the blues. You cannot think your way into it. In order to truly play blues guitar, you have to experience [...]
A brand-new priest arrived at his first church. As usually seems to be the case, several of the original members of the parish had waited for their new priest to arrive before they would die. Consequently, in four weeks he did eight funerals. He was so busy with the funerals that he did not have time to write his regular Sunday Sermons. So, he used the sermon from the Sunday he arrived … 3 more times. The Vestry went to the Bishop complaining that this new priest had used the same sermon 4 times in a row. The Bishop asked what the sermon was about. The Vestry members couldn’t remember, they scratched their heads and hemmed and hawed - but they really couldn’t remember. So the Bishop said, “Let’s let him use it one more time.”
I read a blog thread online this week. It had a provocative title: “I love Jesus, but hate His church.” I LOVE Jesus, but I HATE His church. The question bein [...]
One sunny May day in Central Park, a blind man was seen tapping for attention with his cane and carrying on his chest a sign: “Help the Blind.” No one paid much attention to him. A little farther on another blind beggar was doing better. Nearly every passerby put a coin in his cup, some even turning back to make their contribution. His sign read: “It is May—and I am blind.” Blindness vs. sight – those who can see versus those who believe they can see – that is the message of today’s readings.
In 1st Samuel, Jesse brings his sons to the prophet, so that the next king of Israel and Judah can be chosen. But God does not see the young men the same way that the prophet Samuel does. The prophet was blind to what God sees in a king. Fortunately, he was not deaf as well as blind. Ultimately he listened as God selected David to be king.
In the Epistle, St. [...]
Two things are important to remember when we are looking at John’s gospel. The first is that Word is synonymous with God. And because of that, conversation is vital to John’s gospel, like the conversations we have heard both last week with Nicodemus and this week with the Samaritan woman’s the well.
The second important thing to remember is revelation, or the revealing of who Jesus is and what God’s kingdom looks like, and how it functions. Of course these revelations happen in conversation, like the one we read this morning.
I love the Woman at the Well in John’s gospel. I think it is because she reminds me of me. The woman Jesus meets at the well is a little feisty, a little cynical, and quite capable of holding her own. She certainly does not seem to get intimidated, especially when she encounters this strange Jew, at the well.
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New Testament scholars are all over the place in their theories of why Nicodemus came to see Jesus in the night. Some believe that Nicodemus wanted to make certain that his fellow Temple leaders did not see him meeting with this renegade rabbi, Jesus. After all, the rest of the Temple authorities were actively trying to get Jesus arrested and crucified. And that certainly seems like a valid reason that this man would have snuck out at night and come to inquire of Jesus, while no prying eyes could see. But here is what I think. I think that Nicodemus came in the night because Jesus was always surrounded by crowds during the day. I believe that Nicodemus said to himself, “If I am going to talk with Jesus for any length of time, it will have to be at night, when the crowds are sleeping.”
Of course there is also the symbolism that is always present in John. Nico [...]
The problem with this section of the Sermon on the Mount, as in the rest of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is that it is easy to dismiss it as something that only applies to Jesus’ time and not ours. After all, Jesus’ world was simpler than ours. Jesus’ world view did not have the complexities of our own global realities.
That is, until we remember that Jesus lived and did ministry in a place and time that was occupied by the Roman Empire. On top of that, we have to recall that the Gospels were written well after the crucifixion in a post-temple, post-Jerusalem, post-destruction reality, the world was chaotic and uncertain. It’s when we remember these details that suddenly, Jesus’ world, the author’s world does not seem that different from our own. And we realize that at the heart of Jesus’ message in Matthew is a message essential for all time. But the words we read today, these [...]
In the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
All I can say, after reading today’s Gospel, is: It’s a good thing that Jesus never had to deal with Facebook and Twitter. I say that because the longer I am on social media platforms, the more I believe that the polarization in this country may be about to become as solid as a giant California redwood tree and as destructive as a category five hurricane.
Let’s do a little experiment right now. Take out your phone. Go ahead. I know that you have them — and occasionally use them during the sermon. I am giving you blanket dispensation — today only. Pull them out and open Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat, or Instagram, or whatever your favorite platform is. Now look at the things that are trending, or at your own feed, and raise your hand as soon as you have found someone saying something bad or snark [...]