Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Abundant Grace


Jesus's kingdom is not run in a respectable way. It's an extravagant amount of grace, an extravagant and imprudent amount of hope.

When we truly grasp God's generosity and extravagance for ourselves, which looks completely like mismanagement to the rest of the world, we will see that God is for people; and so the follower of Christ becomes for people too, sharing the extravagance of grace and mercy with others.

A sermon preached for Church of the Holy Apostles, Katy.

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Slow Burn" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)


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Monday, November 2, 2020

All Saints' Miracle


As we remember in our all Saints Day celebration, the celebration of faithful departed, here is the love we proclaim in faith atthe grave side of our beloved sisters and brothers: the miracle of kinship.Sermon for Trinity Episcopal Church in Midtown, Houston, on All Saints' Sunday 2020.

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Slow Burn" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)


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Tuesday, September 1, 2020

A God of History


Like Moses, we stand at the precipice of tomorrow. We are given opportunity to change - to work beyond our own individual flourishing, for the flourishing of others, for God’s vision. For a history-making God.

This sermon was originally preached for Emmanuel, Houston, on Exodus 3:1-15.

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Slow Burn" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)


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Thursday, July 16, 2020

Marketplace Gods


A sermon about gut reactions, rooted in magical thinking - not so different from worshipping the marketplace gods in Paul’s time.

The truth is, the lesser stories are addictive and never enough.

God answers you and bids you hear, and see - the age of the marketplace gods has come to an end.

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Slow Burn" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)


Check out this episode!

Quotes

  • "Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process." Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • "Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer." Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • "Perfection, in a Christian sense, means becoming mature enough to give ourselves to others." Kathleen Norris
  • "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." John Wesley
  • "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." G. K. Chesterton
  • "One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans." C. S. Lewis
  • "When we say, 'I love Jesus, but I hate the Church,' we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the church seldom asks us for forgiveness." Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
  • "Christians are hard to tolerate; I don't know how Jesus does it." Bono
  • "It's too easy to get caught in our little church subcultures, and the result is that the only younger people we might know are Christians who are already inside the church." Dan Kimball