Category: Uncategorized
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Walk in the Way of Insight: A Sermon Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church, NYC
August 18, 2024 Walk in the Way of Insight:A Sermon on John 6: 51-58 Every now and again, we run across Gospel Readings that are, shall we say, awkward. Today’s fits that bill. It’s one thing for Jesus to tell us that he is the living bread that came down from heaven, and that whoever eats…
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GRADUATION DAY: A SERMON ON JOHN 15: 26-27; 16: 4b-15
GRADUATION DAY:A Sermon on PentecostDelivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church NYC May 19, 2024 Robertson Davies, the Canadian novelist, dramatist and humorist is one of the major authors who enriched my life through his books. I stumbled on The Deptford Trilogy by sheer good fortune, and then, some months later, found a first edition of my favorite of his…
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The Judgment: A Sermon on John: 3:14-21
The Judgment A Sermon on John 3:14-21Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York City, March 10, 2024 So, when I first wrote this sermon, I decided we didn’t need the reading from Numbers 21: 4-9. Well, as I finished proclaiming the Gospel, and began to preach, I realized that without at least some discussion of the reading…
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The Beloved: A Sermon Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church NYC, January 7, 2024
This morning, we performed one of the great sacraments of the Church—we baptized a baby, nearly six months old, into the Christian faith. His name is Keaton Aldo Laudel, and his parents Ashlyn and Andrew Laudel were joined by his godfathers Jake and Camden. Baptism is a beginning, the first step in what is intended to be…
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The Ghost That Wasn’t: A Sermon on Matthew 14: 22-33, Delivered at St. Barts NYC, August 13, 2023
The belief in ghosts is one that has worn thin in the twenty-first Century, even though it stretches back into history for almost as long as we can trace human recollection. In the first sustained narrative, The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian hero of the title, has lost his closest friend, Enkidu, the brother of his heart,…
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The Spirit and the Flesh: A Sermon on Romans 8: 1-11 Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church, NYCJuly 16, 2023
You don’t hear much about C.P. Snow these days. He was a scientist, a civil servant, and a novelist. He wrote a Roman Fleuve, a linked series of 11 novels, under the omnibus title Strangers and Brothers, in which he followed the career of an aspiring lawyer and writer from his hungry youth to the brink of…
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The Worth of Sparrows: A Sermon on Matthew 10: 24-39, Delivered at St. Barts NYC, Pride Sunday,June 25, 2023
In the film Excalibur, Nichol Williamson as Merlin has a quiet moment, musing as a cake is being slowly passed to King Arthur at the Round Table. He says “Looking at a cake is like looking at the future; until you’ve tasted it, what do really know? And then, of course, it’s too late.” As a preacher,…
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“Glorify Thy Name: A Sermon on John 17: 1-11Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church, NYC, May 21, 2023
The answer, of course, is that God doesn’t need to be glorified by his creation, and Jesus, who is no longer in the world, as he puts it, also does not himself need to be glorified—in fact, at this point in John’s Gospel, Jesus is about to be arrested, tried, and crucified, an experience that…
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The Day is Past: A Sermon on Luke 24: 13-35Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church, NYC, April 22, 2023
Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand, and the day is past; be our companion on the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen. This collect for the…
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Tear it Out and Throw it Away: A Sermon on Matthew 5: 1-37
Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church, NYCFebruary 12, 2023 In the 1974 film The Three Musketeers, our heroes find themselves surrounded by the Cardinal’s Guards, a body of soldiers as lauded as the musketeers themselves, as loyal to Cardinal Richelieu as Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan are to the King. The two rival forces break out into a…
ANGLOCAT ON The Prowl: A Deacon's Miscellany 