Apr 23, 2023 |
It is Now the Third Day
| The Rev. Adrienne KochIt is Now the Third Day
Luke 24: 13-35
A sermon preached by the Rev. Adrienne Koch Sunday, April 23, 2023
Jesus dies on Friday afternoon and rises by sunrise on Sunday, and this tells us that the third day is a metaphorical concept that does not depend upon 24-hour cycles or how many times the sun chases the moon. Jesus’ resurrection on the third day is like a compass pointing humanity toward where God is creating something new, and timing of the third day is always perfect, always right when it needs to be.
If circumstances in your life today have left you stranded in the pain and suffering of a Good Friday of the soul; If you feel like you’re still waiting in the darkness, the foreboding unknowing of Holy Saturday, let this third Sunday of Easter remind you that the third dayis still now; you haven’t missed Easter, your new life is pending, awaiting you to recognize as Pythagoras did, that "beatitude is found in the perfection of the numbers of the soul.”
My friends, it is NOW the third day. So let the strong arms of our Triune God, that Great Builder of the cosmos, carry your burdens away today. Jesus himself said told us that burdens are light for him to carry.
A sermon preached by the Rev. Adrienne Koch Sunday, April 23, 2023
Jesus dies on Friday afternoon and rises by sunrise on Sunday, and this tells us that the third day is a metaphorical concept that does not depend upon 24-hour cycles or how many times the sun chases the moon. Jesus’ resurrection on the third day is like a compass pointing humanity toward where God is creating something new, and timing of the third day is always perfect, always right when it needs to be.
If circumstances in your life today have left you stranded in the pain and suffering of a Good Friday of the soul; If you feel like you’re still waiting in the darkness, the foreboding unknowing of Holy Saturday, let this third Sunday of Easter remind you that the third dayis still now; you haven’t missed Easter, your new life is pending, awaiting you to recognize as Pythagoras did, that "beatitude is found in the perfection of the numbers of the soul.”
My friends, it is NOW the third day. So let the strong arms of our Triune God, that Great Builder of the cosmos, carry your burdens away today. Jesus himself said told us that burdens are light for him to carry.
Apr 16, 2023 |
Doubt is Fuel for Faith
| The Very Rev. Bernard J. OwensDoubt is Fuel for Faith
John 20:19-31
A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens delivered April 16, 2023.
A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens delivered April 16, 2023.
Jesus did say to Thomas “do not doubt but believe” but when we take a simplistic view of either doubt or belief then something expansive and generative gets downgraded to a crass dealbreaker. “Either/or” thinking has made us perpetually insecure in our relationship with God and produced a religion fearful of anything that would suggest doubt or uncertainty or even free thinking. The worst sins of religion get committed when that need for certainty is brittle and unyielding. When we are in a living relationship with something that is unknown or uncertain, doubt simply comes with the territory. It’s part of a growing comfort with moving through the dark, learning to trust the grace and love of God when certainty and clarity of vision are hard to come by. Doubt is fuel for faith: to have doubt is to have a living relationship with the unknown…and faith according to Thomas Merton means “integrating the known & the unknown into a living whole.
Apr 09, 2023 |
The Language of Joy
| The Very Rev. Bernard J. OwensThe Language of Joy
A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens on Easter Sunday, 2023
Joy is what comes when we move through the valley of death and come out the other side to find new life waiting for us. Joy is not just a happy feeling, but what happens to our whole bodies, our whole selves, when we live our lives as moving not towards death, but towards the greater life. Every moment we feel joy, it’s like an eruption of realizing that life is really all about resurrection. Because of love, death is not the most powerful force in the universe. Because of love, we have new life. Because of love, we have joy. Even in the midst of the hardest of times, the love of God fills us with new life, and echoes with the hymns of joy.
Apr 02, 2023 |
The Means Are The Ends
| The Very Rev. Bernard J. OwensThe Means Are The Ends
A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens on Palm Sunday April 2023.
If your means are violence, coercion, intimidation, or any other instrument that fails to respect the dignity of every human being, then you will be hard pressed to find any ends that truly justify the means. Our means – our actions - say far more about our ends than any manifesto or vision statement. Choose your means wisely, then, for they determine not just your path, but your destination. Suffering cannot just be cut away: we must go through it, we have to walk with one another when they are going through it. If we can’t move towards suffering, then we’ll just push it off onto others, and ultimately make it worse for ourselves. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Live by the gun, die by the gun, he would say to a nation willing to set human sacrifice on the altar of the second amendment. Six more in Nashville, 3 of them children. How Long, O Lord, How Long?