Author Archives: Brother Abraham

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All of these sermons were delivered in the Abbey Church. To make it easier to find a certain topic or lectionary day, click one the blue tags below (Holidays, Sundays Year A, Sundays Year B, Sundays Year C). The sermons are posted in order of their calendar date, so not all in the same lectionary year are together – keep scrolling down, and you will find more from earlier calendar years.

Other sermons can be found on our YouTube channel.
Many of Abbot Andrew’s sermons are posted on his blog.

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere…

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Isaiah 40:1-11
Acts 13:14b-26
Luke 1:57-80

June 24, 2024 Abbey Church Abraham

The “Song of Zechariah” that we heard in our gospel story is familiar to anyone who has been around a monastery for any amount of time, because most Christian monastic communities recite it everyday. It is a good reminder that we are given the task of preparing people for the reception of Jesus as Lord. Many people tend to personalize it, especially the verse that says: “YOU, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for YOU will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.”

So, it seems that a big part of the job is proclaiming forgiveness of sins. We also know from the life of John the Baptist that he spent a lot of time reminding people that they HAVE sinned. Maybe our job is to put the two things together: letting the world know that there is right and wrong, and then letting people know that God forgives them when they inevitably mess up and do wrong.

We must do the two things in a mature fashion. In our proclamation of right and wrong, we need to be not so obsessed with simple sins that tend to be interesting to everyone (usually involving sex), and instead emphasize more harmful sins such as greed, oppression, and exploitation. In our proclamation of forgiveness, we need to not simply dismiss the sins, but to emphasize that they really are bad, that we really do them, and that they really hurt ourselves and others. Even with the knowledge that we will all sin, we must never use that knowledge as a reason to not care about the sin or frivolously excuse it.

It is also good to remember that we are preparing the way for Jesus as Lord, not for ourselves as petty tyrants. That means that one of the best ways of preparing for Jesus to come is to make sure that we get out of the way. AMEN

Easter V Year B: Missing Body Parts

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Acts 8:26-40
I John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8

April 28, 2024   Abbey Church   Abraham

There are many lists of laws and rules in the Old Testament, and they do not always match up exactly. Most of the lists work with the idea that God exists in such a different level of reality that we need to meet certain criteria in order to connect with God and not be obliterated in the process. There are certain things we must do and possess and other things we must not do and possess in order to safely commune with God. Being good to other people is high on most of the lists of things to do. Being free from involvement in things associated with beginning or ending lives is also high on most lists: recently touching a corpse or having sex or menstruating must be avoided in order to safely be in God’s presence. Being healthy is also necessary: having leprosy or missing body parts was an obstacle to communal worship.

So, our first reading this morning is surprising because it is about someone missing some body parts who had been worshiping God and came through the experience safely and positively. His story is a catalyst for all of us to reassess our private lists of rules about who is acceptable to God.

Another good reason to reassess our private holiness checklists is the fact that Jesus shows us that although God does indeed exist on a different plane than we do, God also exists on our level of reality as one of us. So, all those rules about avoiding the messy parts of physical existence don’t carry weight anymore, because Jesus lived and lives all that messiness with us. The part about being good to other people grows in importance, but even that is not necessary. The only criterion we need to meet in order to relate to God is to exist.

Our existence give us the right to commune with God, and also the right to reject God. We can be a branch on the Jesus vine and thrive, or we can go our own way and wither. What we cannot do is decide whether or not others can also be on the Jesus vine, and they cannot decide for us. We simply need to stay on the vine and make room for others.   AMEN