Welcome to St. Augustine’s this Christmas. It’s our hope that each one of you would come to know the same great joy that the shepherds knew that first Christmas night; that like them your fear would turn to rejoicing; that you too would hear t

2019 12 15: Are We To Wait For Another?

Dec 18th, 2019

You have to imagine that John was sitting there in prison thinking to himself, “This isn’t how it was supposed to work. Herod’s days are supposed to be numbered but it still looks like he’s on the throne. Violence and injustice still sit on t

2019 12 08: It's the Hope I Can't Stand

Dec 12th, 2019

We see the lion attacking the calf; we see addiction overcoming the will of our loved ones; we see cancer or illness or age wasting away the bodies of our friends; we see death prowl. But what our eyes see and what our ears hear is not the ulti

2019 12 01: Sleepers Awake!

Dec 5th, 2019

Life is short. What are we living for? Can we see who we are and who we’ve become? Can we see the world six inches past our own nose? Are we ready to meet God? Are we awake or are we asleep? I need to be clear: St. Paul called death “the

2019 11 24: The Place of Refuge

Nov 27th, 2019

We are, all of us, refugees, aren’t we? All searching for a safe place to dwell, all looking and longing for a home to call our own, a place to rest and to thrive, a place to heal and be well. This psalm, and St. Augustine, tell us that this re

2019 11 17: The Meeting-Place

Nov 18th, 2019

What does Jesus have to do with the institution of the church? Why should I give time and money to support it? I want to focus this morning on two answers to that question. First and foremost, the answer is that Jesus wants to pitch his tent

2019 11 03: Surprising Saints

Nov 8th, 2019

One reason we celebrate All Saints Day is that the saints show us that when we truly do rely on God, when we seek his will in prayer, when like Ruth we follow him to places that don’t make sense unless God shows up in power and keeps his promis

2019 10 20: Why Pray?

Oct 23rd, 2019

If you look around at the many injustices of our time and pray day and night that God would grant justice to the downtrodden and the oppressed and the voiceless, look out: God may be calling you to go and do something to help him make your pray

2019 10 13: The Kingdom of God Revealed

Oct 15th, 2019

Naaman discovers that the world of the Lord — that is, the Kingdom of God, the authority of God given to Elisha the healer and prophet, is not the same plane as worldly authority, indeed, it is opposite in many ways. What might we learn from th

2019 10 06: The Gospel According to Ruth

Oct 7th, 2019

Love and costly grace showed up in the story of Ruth and Naomi, you might even say in person, and brought about redemption and new life in the village of Bethlehem. One day years later in the very same place, in the very same family, love and g

2019 09 29: My Song is Love Unknown

Oct 4th, 2019

What did Ruth stand to gain from leaving her home and following Naomi to a strange place where they’d have nothing? What did Boaz have to gain from buying a farm and giving it away, and from marrying a Moabite nobody with less than nothing? I

2019 09 22: Not a Safe God

Sep 26th, 2019

The God of Israel is a good God and he wants what’s best for us. But he’s not a safe God, and the path he asks us to take, like that of Ruth, will not be a safe one. Following the God of Israel, if we’re really relying on him, is going to mea

2019 09 15: The God of No Matter What

Sep 21st, 2019

Ruth had every reason to think that by giving her life away to an Israelite woman and the people of Israel, she was making a sacrifice that would end only in suffering and death. But as we’ll start to see next week, that isn’t what happens whe

2019 09 08: My Name is Bitter

Sep 9th, 2019

What does it say about God that this story is in the Bible? It’s not a story about yet another great and powerful man—instead it zeroes in on two poor women and their hopes and troubles. It’s not even primarily about an Israelite—it’s about an

2019 08 25: The Bent-Over Woman

Aug 28th, 2019

I think we sometimes come across healing stories in the Gospels and don’t really know what to do with them. They’re out of our everyday experience, not the kind of thing that we Episcopalians do. A healing story isn’t just about a promise tha

2019 08 18: Not Peace but a Sword

Aug 23rd, 2019

When the next test comes for you—and it may very well come as soon as Sunday brunch after church—ask yourself two questions first. Will my response to this injustice or wrong put me in some way at risk? Is it costly for me; does it make me vu

2019 08 11: All Nations

Aug 14th, 2019

Our Lord said, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see it and give glory to your Father in heaven.” St. John said that this light is Christ, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it. You and I a

2019 07 14: Is That My Neighbor?

Jul 16th, 2019

It’s easier if we just think of the parable as about risking your neck to save a stranger. It gets harder when we see that Jesus isn’t just talking about strangers—he’s talking about enemies. He’s talking about the people who get on your last

2019 07 07: Sowing and Reaping

Jul 8th, 2019

When we sow to the Spirit, it’s like we’re reaching out our hand and asking Jesus to deliver us from evil and make us new, born again, set free. When we pray, we’re not just working on ourselves to become more meditative or spiritual. We’re a

2019 06 30: The Freedom of a Christian

Jul 2nd, 2019

When Martin Luther wrote his little book on the freedom of a Christian, based in large part on Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he wrote that “a Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful serva

2019 06 23: Deliver Us From Evil

Jun 26th, 2019

That leads me to the second reason we need the Bible’s teaching about evil, which is that no matter how comfortable we may feel, we all need deliverance in one way or another. We misread this story if we think that it’s about someone else, one

2019 06 16: Forever and Ever Amen

Jun 17th, 2019

God isn’t so high and lifted up that he can’t be bothered by us, except maybe to give us fifteen minutes of his day. God glorified himself in his Son, Jesus Christ, a poor Jewish handyman with no power except the truth. Just like the one God

2019 05 02: The Curious Case of the Feast of the Ascension

Jun 3rd, 2019

Why do we celebrate Ascension Day? The story almost seems a little cruel. Jesus had come back to his disciples from the grave, and the forty days he spent with them after his resurrection were a time of healing and joy and being filled up for

2019 05 19: What is Worship For?

May 23rd, 2019

Worship does make us happier and more fulfilled and it should make us better and more moral, but worship isn’t primarily about any human purpose or earthly benefit. Worship is about God. We worship God for no other reason than that God is to

2019 05 12: Don't Have it Your Way

May 14th, 2019

I have bad news: the Kingdom of God is not like Burger King. Really, this is Good News, we might even say it’s the Good News, but just like the questioners in John’s Gospel this morning, I wonder if we often expect that the Kingdom of God, that