Christ Church Alexandria Sunday Sermon: Recent Episodes
Christ Church Alexandria
Weekly sermon feed from Christ Church Alexandria, Alexandria Va. An Episcopal church for nearly 250 years.
"Solomon's request was not simply about wisdom or intellect in the abstract. Solomon asked for the ability to perceive God's truth in the world around him and in his own life, to help govern his intentions, to be able to listen for that whisper of God in his own heart."
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"God is reminding them to whom they belong, and telling them they have no reason to fear."
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"This prophet could have reasonably composed lament or diatribe, but instead...composed words of hope. And that matters, because hope is a choice."
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"If wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, what wisdom are we practicing? What fruits will our actions bear? What will Jesus say we are accomplishing in the midst of sorrow and division?
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"It also teaches us about authenticity, about living into the people God created us to be. We are, each and every one of us, made in God's perfect image. We are all representations of the beauty and diversity of God's creation. And we are beloved, exactly as we are."
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"This call story shows us how to be in mutual relationship with God and how God's dream for us is to live in community, both with God and each other."
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"Jesus did not quote "The Pitt" or the practice of Hoʻoponopono...but they hold a common purpose. They are reminding the one leaving and those remaining behind that relationships, human connections of the heart, outlive death in a profound way."
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"Jesus knows the end is near...What did he think was the most important thing about being his follower? He talks to them about love."
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"Jesus is reminding the disciples that the most meaningful work they do - the work of building the kingdom of God - is done in community. And even when the community is in crisis, when hope seems snuffed out for good, they must find a way through - to not let the heart of community fracture, for that's where they will find their hope."
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The Rev. Nathan Empsall is the Priest-in-Charge at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James in New Haven, CT, and the former Executive Director of Faithful America, the largest online community of grassroots Christians acting
for social justice.
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"We see that grief is multi-layered and disorienting. It's always more and deeper than what we see as the central loss."
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"If people are too scared to think creatively and critically about God and each other, they remain under the thumb of those who define who is in and who is out - for generations."
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"Evil rarely announces itself as evil. It present itself as realism, as prudence, as wisdom, and it whispers 'the resources are scarce, trust is naive, someone must always lose'. And in that narrowing, power begins to masquerade as necessity, and privilege begins to justify itself as common sense."
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Canon Lee Hill, the Diocese of Virginia's Canon for Racial Justice and Healing, as part of our Preacher/Teacher Series.
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"Being seen - to be really known, recognized and understood - is something we all crave."
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"These are no small promises. And their order is intentional, they build on one another... it is no wonder that we cannot live into these promises on our own. Baptism calls us into relationship with God and with one another."
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"We're called to follow the brightest star, the true light, like the Wise Men did. To orient our hearts towards what it is true and right and righteous and in so doing we might be called to stand up and protect ourselves and others from injustice."
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"Because God, the light, always comes looking for us. Emmanuel - God is with us - is a promise that no matter what happened, God would be with God's people. Even when, especially when, we forget to look."
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"This is often where doubt begins for us as well isn't it? Something happens and we believe God would act in a certain way at a certain time, and when that doesn't happen, we're disappointed. And we doubt. We doubt what we believe to be true about God, and often, we doubt ourselves."
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Sunday's service experienced technical difficulties with the audio equipment. The sermon begins about halfway through.
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"Because of his great resurrection, not his death... we know will be accepted into life eternal. That is the promise of Christ the King. Not death, but life."
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"Isn't that a beautiful image? All of us, those who came before us, we ourselves, and those to come, do and will continue to live in God's heart."
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"The early church called everyone who had faith in Jesus a saint. And so today's celebration is not just about those christians whose names have been added to a calendar, it's for all of the faithful in every generation, past, present , and yet to come, who look to Christ in hope."
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"In other words, this parable is for everybody...this is the lesson we need when we are tempted to believe that we are better, that we are favored, that we are good in a way that others are not."
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"The all too familiar tension between the powerful and the powerless... is where Jesus shows us the true nature of God - by showing us what God is not."
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Guest Preacher. President & CEO of Episcopal Relief & Development
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"When we have built our self worth and relationship to God around things we do as opposed to what god has done for us... this can lead us to a very dark place indeed."
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"The purchase of a field isn’t about practicality. It isn’t about sound financial judgment. The purchase is about hope. Reckless, optimistic hope."
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"Lament is grief expressed. Sometimes it is at or to God, sometimes it is about the world and its injustices. Lamenting a loss or a grievance can be a powerful tool for mending a broken heart... Our God is big enough to handle our grief, especially when it grows too great for us to carry ourselves."
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"You don't have to be 'out there' to be lost. Lost-ness is part of a life of faith. It happens to everyone."
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"Jesus wants us to know that discipleship is hard, that it has a cost. But, importantly, discipleship is available to EVERYONE."
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"And yet, despite knowing how all these prophets will respond God keeps calling them. God continues to call people who not only have a deep love for God, but also who have a strong, healthy sense of humility, because none of us can do anything alone."
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"We are participants in God's world and we are participants in making it right. Making a world in which everyone is valued, has what they need for thriving, not just a few, not even several, but all."
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"In the story of our scriptures we can see a religious community grappling with itself, with current events, and with how it wants to respond in faithfulness to God."
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"We teach this prayer to our kids, stitch it onto pillows, and whisper it to ourselves in troubling times. But do we really appreciate what we're asking for when we pray it? This prayer is a gift of comfort as many prayers we know by heart are. but the things we hope for when we prayer the Lord's Prayer are more radical than we might realize if we switch to autopilot during its familiar cadence."
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"Mary and Martha were women to be reckoned with. And the way this gospel story unfolds, we the readers seem to be forced to pit these two formidable women at odds with each other...but when we read it carefully, the text does not support this dichotomy."
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"Over and over in Luke, Jesus shows us that the way we live into a right relationship with God – the way we justify ourselves, as the lawyer says – is by how we live into a right relationship with, and how we treat our neighbor."
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"This peace that the apostles practice is a way of being. It's an attitude of hospitality that yearns for but does not expect or necessitate reciprocation."
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"As Christians, we are called to have concern and care for everyone who has ever felt excluded - like an outsider - because Jesus had concern and care for everyone - especially the excluded and the outsider."
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"Bridging stories are about the ways in which we turn towards one another...It's a radical kind of listening. It's a listening that refuses to be a part of breaking apart."
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Pentecost Sunday
"The question here isn't about how languages are a punishment or a gift, the question is about how we understand our sense of being, our sense of belonging and what truly unifies us."
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"A more complex understanding of prayer, a more nuanced understanding of a relationship with God believes that prayer changes us, not God. Prayer is not a technique for getting things from God but for strengthening our relationship with God."
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"Love in the way that Jesus intends for is not just a magical supply of kindness and benevolence, but instead it's the power to respond to the hatred of our neighbors with words and actions - the kind of words and actions that call them to be their better selves just as we are called to be our better selves."
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"This can be the way of faith, can't it? Our God has never been crystal clear and mystery free... and that can be uncomfortable."
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"Grace. it's a short little word... it packs a big theological punch... It's almost impossible for us mere humans to understand... God gives us more of it than we could ever ask or imagine."
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"What Christ is asking us to do here is reorient ourselves to him, to God, to move away from the self-justification and into further relationship with him. "
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"We have all known anguish, grief, and the desire to lament. And no matter how strange it might feel to shout at or get angry with God, lament is good."
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"Think about a time when everything just clicked, when the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit just right and you saw things more clearly... The transfiguration is that feeling times one thousand. My friends, the transfiguration is inviting us to see Christ in the fullness of his majesty."
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"God remains actively involved and at work in creation... I believe that God works within events and with our choices - the good and the bad, the tidy and the messy, the glorious and the tragic."
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"Simon, who has witnessed Jesus' power firsthand is prepared to trust Jesus even though he doesn't know who exactly Jesus is, but that is about to change."
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"Life's journey can be textured. The multitude of points where God will find us on this journey can be textured too."
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"I want to remind us of the dangers of cheap joy... For some of us, this reminder to 'rejoice, always,' feels a little shallow, considering everything that's going right. Worse, is joy that is used as a hiding place... and perhaps the most insidious - joy as a weapon."
Advent III
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Advent II
"This grace, this abundant love that we can't earn or lose that we receive as God's company here on earth in the person of Jesus, is something God offers anyone who will accept it."
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"In what ways are we blinded by the shiny stones of an earthly temple rather than putting our attention in the one that created us and everything we see?"
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"Following Christ is about giving what we have for God. About doing what we can for the sake of those who can't. Jesus and the scribe - who disagreed on almost everything - agreed on this:
Love God. Love your neighbor."
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Guest preacher the Rev. Nicole Lambelet, a chaplain at St. Stephen's & St. Agnes Upper School
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"I learned that questions like this, ones that are genuine but uninformed, are called questions wrongly asked. Being able to give it a name has helped me understand that i may not always know the best way to ask the questions I'm curious about."
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"Fear is a human response to uncontrollable unknowns in our environment. What James offers to us in a time of fear is a strong reminder of how to comport ourselves a people of faith."
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There's mention of aliens and Klingons, yes, but the bigger question is, how far does God's grace, God's justice, God's welcome extend?
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"It's not what or how we eat, says Jesus, it is how we treat those who are at the table with us and how we invite those who are not here yet."
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"So what is going on here? is jesus actually telling us we must consume him, physically? Will I, by the end of this sermon, profess an an unshakeable belief in transubstantiation? Or, as is so often the case, are there historical cultural, and contextual factors at play that can help illuminate this reading? Spoiler alert - it's the last one."
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"The complaining that we hear doesn't stop with the crowd. soon enough the disciples join in with the grumbling, taking such great offense that many of them turn away from Jesus.... Many found what Jesus was saying offensive. not just those who opposed him, but many of his followers too. What Jesus was saying was just too hard for them."
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"I once heard someone say 'God always goes to where the people are.' And we see in both of these stories, God doing just that - on the move, out and about, not collecting materials to build a structure but collecting people to build a household. To build a community of people who respond to the clamoring of the world, to meet them where they are, with compassion, with healing, with hope."
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"We are held, always and forever, in the heart of the God who loves us beyond measure."
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"Even when it feels like your body is connected to Jesus only by the thinnest, flimsiest thread, he is always there at the other end."
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"We, like the disciples, run the risk of thinking we've got Jesus all figured out."
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"Whenever truth is spoken to power, power gets nervous. Power teaches us over and over that change should be resisted, that anything new is to be feared. But more often than not what we are told to resist and fear is not new, but rather, things that we have never encountered before. Things that have always been there. Things that have always been true."
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"There is a holiness in asking questions that seek the truth."
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Guest preacher The Rev. Canon Titus Presler, Th.D., D.D. Executive Director of the Global Episcopal Mission Network
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"And just to make this abundantly clear... the Holy Spirit shows up again, demonstrating to anyone who had previously thought to call the Holy Spirit theirs and theirs alone, the spirit of God cannot and will not be contained. The spirit will do what the spirit will do."
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The Rt. Rev’d James Joseph “Bud” Shand was appointed as a Visiting Bishop in the Diocese of Virginia by Bishop E Mark Stevenson in January, 2024. He will serve in the Diocese from January through May of 2024. He is based in Northern Virginia.
Bishop Shand is the retired Bishop Diocesan of the Diocese of Easton (Maryland), where he served from 2003 to 2014.
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"Isn't it just like Jesus, who... seeks those who've been told they don't belong and brings them into the baptismal waters of belonging."
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"What if, instead of seeing this as Jesus' act of proof of bodily resurrection we see it instead as Jesus' permission to find joy rather than pain or frustration at the table?"
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"Christ's love transforms us all and through that love, if we let it, the world is transformed."
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“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
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"Love is a promise - a promise for a future we may never see ourselves."
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"When we allow ourselves to be afraid, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable... and such a vulnerable heart is a heart that will not fail to be touched by God's love."
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"How do we continue to do God's will in the world when the bar for authenticity set by Moses and Jesus is impossibly high?"
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"These are the people God calls on to be God's hands in the world. These are the people who make up our scripture, our church, our families."
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"The calling of Nathaniel invites you to ponder how this vision resonates with your heart and emboldens you to ministry."
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Guest preacher the Rev. Dr. Ayla Lepine from St James’s Piccadilly
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Advent III
"There's nothing wrong with using our time wisely. There's nothing wrong with doing the work of self improvement or wanting to look and be our very best... unless that's become a distraction from looking toward the coming Christ."
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Rev. David Beckmann has been part of Christ Church for more than 30 years. During most of that time, he was president of Bread for the World, a nationwide ecumenical Christian advocacy movement that urges our nation's elected leaders to do their part to end hunger in our country and around the world. He was awarded the World Food Prize for Bread for the World's role in the dramatic reduction of world hunger over several decades. He's now based at Virginia Theological Seminary, where he is Dean's Advisor for Political and Economic Justice.
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Advent I
"There's so many people," he sings, "Everybody is here. I saw the girls from the office, I saw those guys from the street. You might think you are lost, but then you find that God draws straight, but with crooked lines."
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"The approach of Advent, paired with Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, means that another Episcopal tradition begins - a series of great debates on how the season of Advent should be celebrated."
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"We've all been given grace and we have the gift of faith. How then, do we put it to work?"
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"Remember that God loves you, and God will never lose you."
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"The beatitudes are not just platitudes, but principles to govern our lives and to show us a new way of living."
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" 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' By lifting up this commandment as second, Jesus shows us just how necessary loving others is to fulfill God's will... But who is my neighbor?"
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Prayer is both a first response and a last resort … Even when we don’t know how or what to pray, the Spirit helps us.
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250th Anniversary Guest Preacher
The Rev. A. Katherine Grieb, Ph.D., is an affiliated faculty member and director of the Center for Anglican Communion Studies. She joined the VTS faculty in 1994. Her expertise includes Greek language, New Testament Interpretation, Romans, Hebrews, social justice, Biblical storytelling, and theatre. Before coming to VTS, she taught at Bangor Theological Seminary.
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Part of our 250th anniversary guest preacher series.
Professor McGowan was appointed Dean and President of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in 2014. An Anglican priest and historian, his scholarly work focuses on the life of early Christian communities, and on aspects of contemporary Anglicanism.
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"Forgiveness is complicated. We could have a sermon every single week of the year on forgiveness and still not be able to grasp the complexities and the relational power dynamics of forgiveness."
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Today we hear the institution of the Passover meal. It is deeply important, not just because it helps us understand the traditions of our Jewish brothers and sisters, but also because it reminds us of the nature of God and what God wants for us.
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"In response to Moses' disbelief, God promises one thing - I will be with you. This is no empty promise. God's promise is baked into the very essence of who God is."
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"While Jacob is indeed the patriarch of our spiritual lineage, he's not necessarily always a role model. kind of your Uncle Billy, who is mostly a really good guy, except for when he used to run moonshine in the hills. But these are our people."
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"This is why we read these stories - it's like your grandmother telling you how your parents met, or about your aunt's first marriage that maybe you didn't know about... they are the stories of our very long ago ancestors. Welcome to the table."
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As part of our 250th anniversary celebration, on June 25 we welcomed guest preacher the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson. Bishop Robinson is a former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. Robinson was elected bishop coadjutor in 2003 and succeeded as bishop diocesan in March 2004. Before becoming bishop, he served as Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of New Hampshire.
Our guest preacher is Matthew Haymes. Matthew is a senior at Alexandria City High School. He's been a French horn player for almost seven years and has been at Christ Church for 10 years. He is a bass in the Christ Church Choir.
Sunday sermon from the Rt. Rev'd E. Mark Stevenson, 14th Bishop Diocesan of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia
Our guest preacher is Helena Dobbs. Helena is a senior at Georgetown Day High School in Washington, D.C. She has been a member of Christ Church for 13 years and is a soprano in the adult choir.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is the guest preacher at Christ Church Alexandria's 250th anniversary celebration
As part of our 250th celebration, we welcome The Rev. Dr. Frank Wade as guest preacher.
The Rev. Francis Wade, D.Min. is a graduate of The Citadel and the Virginia Theological Seminary and has served as an Episcopal priest since 1966. After serving congregations in his native West Virginia for 17 years, he was called as rector of Washington, DC’s St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in 1983.
Inspired by "The Band's Visit", the desire to connect with another person is a universal one.