In the Thick of It

Bishop Steven Charleston on The Journey

Do not doubt the faith that brought you this far, do not doubt the hope that you still carry. I know that your journey has been a long one, with enough disappointments along the way to discourage a saint, but you trusted yourself to make this climb, you believed in who God made you, and you took the chance. Don’t quit now. Don’t turn away. The outcome may not go according to plan, but it will be a blessing. You did not come this long distance to miss the moment when you know the destination was worth the trip. Sometimes to have faith, you just keep moving.

Rowan Williams' Easter Sermon

Our very own Archbishop of Canterbury at his best: “We learn and assimilate [the Resurrection’s] truth by the risk of living it; to those on the edge of it, looking respectfully and wistfully at what it might offer, we can only say, ‘you’ll learn nothing more by looking; at some point you have to decide whether you want to try to live with it and in it.’”

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Track:
Easter Sermon 2012

Plays:
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This year’s Easter Sermon: “A Journey Into Trust.” Please feel free to pass along to anyone, especially newcomers to the church, who struggles with engaging the Resurrection story. I consider this one of my best sermons.

A Journey Into Trust

Sermons at All Saints Parish: Sunday, April 8, 2012 (Easter Day)

One of the great things about Easter is how we get to sing out so strongly and powerfully. He is risen, he is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! It’s one of those times when you have to use exclamation points. Everything we do and say here affirms that the Easter event was and is real.

But if you’re like me, all that affirming might make you feel a little separate, like you’re not really getting it like everybody else. I don’t have that so much these days, but I sure did for a long time. I get it. Don’t worry. It’s all right. It’s natural to have sincere questions about the Resurrection. Something happened that’s never happened before or since. The evidence is not the kind we’re used to.

Really, I Don’t Have A Problem With the Commandments

Sermons at All Saints Parish

Before I get into this, I want to be clear that I’m fine with the way the Ten Commandments have been handed down to us. Really I am.

As we might say out here in California, “they’re kind of a downer, man,” but there’s no doubt they give us the basic rules about how not to blow up your life.

Healing Snakebites

Sermons at All Saints Parish: Sunday, March 18, 2012 (Fourth Sunday of Lent)

Texts: Numbers 21:4-9/John 3:14-21 (“As Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up….”)

I always have to smile when the Old Testament reading we just heard comes back around. I like to call it “Snake on a Stick” Sunday. We know the story is very, very old – scholars tell us it was written more than 3,000 years ago – and its images are unforgettable: struggle in an endless desert; people whining, full of resentment at God; deadly snakes biting, people dying; Moses praying desperately for the people; a strange sculpture on a pole that heals you just by looking at it.

What Do I Want Our Ministry To Be?

At the vestry retreat this last weekend, I spent some time meditating on the question “What would I like our ministry together to be like?” This word cloud is the result. As I was thinking about it, it kind of represents how I really want to be in the world as well.

One-Man Show of Mark's Gospel

As we move full speed into the “Year of Mark,” one resource is a series of YouTube videos that cover the entire gospel start to finish. Check it out!

Charlotte lived 91 years, was sharp until the very end, and had a lifelong love in Frank, her husband of 72 years. Just imagine that. Rest in peace, Charlotte. We miss you! (Charlotte’s memorial service was Saturday, January 21 at All Saints. More than 100 people attended.)

C.S. Lewis on Feelings and the Spirit

“Accept these sensations with thankfulness as birthday cards from God, but remember that they are only greetings, not the real gift…The real thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit which can’t usually be — perhaps not ever — experienced as a sensation or emotion. The sensations are merely the response of your nervous system. Don’t depend on them. Otherwise when they go and you are once more emotionally flat (as you certainly will be quite soon), you might think that the real thing had gone too. But it won’t. It will be there when you can’t feel it. Maybe even be most operative when you can feel it least.”

—C.S. Lewis, in a letter dated May 15, 1952. From A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C.S. Lewis.