Category Archives: Sermon

Proper 14 Year A: Out of the Depths

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Proper 14 Year A
I Kings 19: 9-18
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 12:22-33


August 9, 2020 Abbey Church Abraham

In our gospel story this morning, Peter and the other disciples are doing exactly what they are told, but run into trouble anyway, and Peter follows Jesus’s instructions, but still becomes frightened. That’s life: even the best people living the best lives will have problems. In our story, Peter is rescued by Jesus. In our own lives, sometimes people are not rescued.

Many people say the existence of random desperation is a sign that either there is no God, or that if there is a God, it is an evil one who doesn’t care about suffering. We can’t blame people for thinking that way – they have a good point. Other people say that random suffering is actually not an indicator of the lack of a good God, but rather is an indicator the our good God is a lover, rather than a control freak. If God is not a controller, but rather a lover, that means that instead of changing our situations, God goes through the situation with us. We don’t know why tragedy happens to some and not to others – all we can really count on is that God loves us and is with us always and everywhere, even in our desperation.

Like Jesus on the cross, God does not always intervene and save us. On the cross, God did not save himself, because God is a not a controller. God suffers with us, as a lover does. That sounds comforting when we are safe, but not so much when we are hurting. Maybe the thing to do is to remember that although God does not always put an end to bad situations, God instead makes something completely new out of them – better than what came before and always much better than we could have imagined. But the fact remains that crucifixion comes before resurrection.

We don’t know why some people suffer so much and others don’t. Our job is to help others as much as we can. And it is quite alright to have faith in God while at the same time questioning God for allowing the suffering. We will suffer at times. Even worse, people we love will suffer, and sometimes won’t get better. God is with us and goes through the pain with us. It is not easy – it’s just the way it is. We will soon be up here to meet God our lover at the table. The time here is intimate as we join our lover in a meal and bring our bodies together in a union that is physical as well as spiritual. That is the perfect time for bringing our hurts, questions, and complaints to God, as people do when sitting down to a meal together or whispering to each other while making love. We might not get the answer we want, but we will be held close and offered a place to rest in the arms of the God who loves us and will never leave us. AMEN

Proper 10 Year A: Good Soil

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Isaiah 55:10-13
Romans 8:1-11
Mathew 13:1-9

Good Soil
July 12, 2020   Abbey Church   Abraham

Everything we have is a gift – that’s “Grace”. We have to take what we are given and build a life out of it – that’s “Works”. Grace vs Works has been a topic throughout Christian history, and unfortunately, many times people have lived as if the two can not exist together. They can and should, and monastic life is a good example of the fact that grace should be a catalyst for good works, and good works are met with grace.

We have been given the opportunity to live here in a monastery (Grace). We then have to use monastic life intentionally and mindfully for it to come to any good (Works). All the tiny rules of refectory jobs, all the discussions, all the early mornings in church followed by gathering in the church throughout the day, all the private prayer and scripture reading, all the do’s and don’t’s, and all the grating characteristics and habits of the other monks: all of that is an opportunity to clear away the rocks and weeds of our own pettiness and whininess so that the seeds of God’s love can grow in the good soil of our cleansed hearts.

It takes a long time, and is tedious, and we can’t see our own progress, so the tools of perseverance and not comparing ourselves with others are important helps in preparing the soil of our lives. We will progress at times and fail at other times, but we won’t give up, because God never gives up – that’s Grace. May we work with the grace that is given to us. We are worth it.   AMEN

Christmas II Year A, B, C: Special

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Jeremiah 31:7-14
Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
Luke 2:41-52


January 5, 2020 Abbey Church Br. Abraham

It has taken two generations of stars to make us humans. In the words of Chrissie Hynde: “we’re special…so special”. But instead of treating ourselves and others and the world around us as the amazing stardust that we are, we so often treat each other like dirt. We don’t even treat our dirt very well. Still, God thinks we are special enough that he became one of us. We share DNA with God! God inhabits the material universe, making all of it a holy temple! Infinity flows throughout finitude! God is transcendent, immanent, and embedded in our world!

And we did not like that, so we killed Jesus. So, God solved that by raising Jesus from the dead, pulling us up into his resurrection. We are special because of creation, incarnation, and resurrection.

We need to remember that, and stop treating ourselves, others around us, and the things in our world so poorly. When we see someone whose life, words, and actions are causing others pain (bullies, business people, political figures, religious tyrants), we need to not only do what we can to stop the wrongdoing, but also have compassion on all involved (victims as well as perpetrators). Dehumanizing and damning the wrongdoer is in itself wrongdoing. After all, they are just as special as we are, and are caught in the same web of fear and sin as we are. They need help escaping evil just as much as we do.

God has wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature. May we take that to heart, and live as if it were true – because it is. AMEN

Advent II, Year A: Unnatural Acts?

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Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12


December 8, 2019 Abbey Church Abraham

In our first reading this morning, Isaiah tells of a golden age of peace and happiness that will come when one of Jesse’s descendants brings righteousness and faithfulness to us. We identify that person as Jesus, and we look to him to bring the golden age to our private lives and the entire world. However, all we need to do is take a quick look around to realize that we are not in a golden age in our private lives or in the rest of the world. It is not here yet, as much as we pray for it and work for it. Paul knows this as he writes to the Christians in Rome, as we heard in our second reading this morning. He tells them to keep living in harmony and to keep believing, and especially to keep hoping.

We also heard from John the Baptist in our gospel story this morning, telling us to not only hope for the golden age, but to do something about it: “repent…prepare…bear fruit…”. John warned the people that the person coming to bring the golden age might not be what they were expecting, and what he was bringing might not be what they expected. John tells the religious people who were coming to him that their piety would not stand up to what the messiah was bringing. We often think of John the Baptist as someone who merely yelled at people whom he considered hypocrites. Maybe we should really think of him as someone who cared about people and so warned them when he thought they were in danger of missing out on the truth.

But still, those warnings would have come as a shock to all the religious people coming to hear him. The warnings would not only be a shock, they would have seemed unnatural and wrong because they weren’t the same as their religious viewpoint told them the way the world should be. The coming of Jesus should shake us up just as much as it shook them up. The things he brings should make us squirm in our smugness and self righteousness. The prophet Isaiah this morning is a good example this: wolves, leopards, lions and bears are not supposed to pal around with lambs, kids, calves, and cows (they are suppose to eat them). Children are not supposed to play around asp and adder dens, because the natural things those snakes are suppose to do is bite children. Isaiah is telling us that the unexpected one will do unexpected things, so it is in our best interest not to have a list of jobs for Jesus to take care of. He will do what he sees fit when he sees fit.

That might sound scary to us because it takes things out of our control. But really, it should make us feel safe and secure, because it means everything is in Jesus’s hands. There is no place safer than that. So, we need to make sure we are in those hands, instead of always trying to escape because we think we know better than Jesus. By trusting Jesus, the golden age is already within us, because with Jesus, every moment is an eternity of heaven. Then in our turn, we can take that heaven and give it to the world around us.

We are not there yet – that could not be more obvious. So, we wait. Tom Petty says: “the waiting is the hardest part”, so as we wait, we also prepare: we hope and pray, and make peace. We take ourselves out of the center of our petty lives and put God in the center (which in turn makes our lives not-so-petty). Jesus comes on Christmas Day. He can also come into our lives everyday and every moment. All of those comings involve unexpected things, but that is good, because it gets us ready for his next coming. AMEN

Proper 17 Year C: The Center Will Hold

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Sirach 10:12-18
Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16
Luke 14:1,7-14

September 1, 2019 Abraham Abbey Church

The “Wrath of God” is a common expression. Aunt Esther used it while hitting Fred Sanford on the head with her Bible and purse, Carrie’s mother probably used the term when warning her daughter about having any kind of fun, and many people reading our scriptures this morning would describe what happens to the people who ignore the advice given as the “Wrath of God”. The first reading actually describes some of the bad things that happen to people who “forsake the Lord”.


But there might be a better take on who or what causes all the problems that come about when we sin. Problems do indeed come about when we sin – always. Sometimes it is just not we who experience the problems, or sometimes we do feel the consequences after a long time of thinking we have “gotten away with it”, and of course, sometimes the effects are immediate and land right on our own heads. But sin does always cause problems (“wrath” if you want to call it that). But it just does not seem that the God shown to us by Jesus is someone who sits around waiting to smite people who break the rules he seems to love making so many of. Maybe the reason there are so many rules is because the foundation of the universe is love, and when we do unloving things we are throwing a wrench in our little corner of the cosmos, making it not work properly for us and the people around us. So maybe all the rules are God’s way of reminding us to do everything in love so that we do not cause harm for ourselves and others. In other words, the rules are there to prevent us from making wrath and bringing it upon ourselves and others.


Sin is simply doing unloving things: prideful government (as in our first reading), being inhospitable, adulterous, and greedy (as in our second reading), and giving things with strings attached (as in our gospel reading). Building lives of sin simply means that we are putting ourselves in the center of everything rather than living in the already established truth that God is the center of everything. When we live with God in the center, we and those around us simply fit in the mix and can go about our daily lives with gratitude and joy, knowing full well that we are not the sources of our own existence. When we try to make ourselves the center of our universes and live as if we are the sources of our own existence, things don’t go well, because we cannot hold it together. Things become fouled up and wrath is created. The wrath is our own fault and our own creation.


So, maybe humans should stop blaming God for all the bad consequences we ourselves have been causing ever since we have been around. Jesus is not here to send us to hell; his job is to pull us out of the hell we make for ourselves and those around us. Why not make the job easier by making less wrath? We can do it. The grace of God is all we need to do it, and the grace of God is the surest thing in the world. AMEN

Proper 13 Year C: That’s For Sure

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Ecless 1:2, 12-14,2:18-20
Col 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21


August 4, 2019 Abbey Church Abraham

“We came into this life unsheltered and all alone. That’s how we came and for sure that’s how we go out.*” That’s what the great theologian Grace Slick sings, and she’s right. And she’s not being sad about it, and Solomon (the author of our first reading this morning) needs to listen to her and cheer up. Things don’t last. People don’t last. So it is all the more important that we love the things and the people around us while we can, because some day, they will be gone, and we will be gone.

Things are good, because they are made by God. But things aren’t God, so as much as we should love the things and people around us, we should love God even more, because God will last. In fact, God’s being is infinitiely more than our being, so we should love God infinitely more than things. More than that, because God’s being is of such a different order than our being, we should love God in a different way of loving than we love people and things.

The more we love God, the more we realize the goodness of the world God has made, and the more we realize that everything receives its integrity and legitimacy solely from God, never from us. Everything is a gift from God. In the eyes of the universe, we have no rights to anything – everything is a gift. So we take it, love it, take care of it for awhile, and then give it back with joy and gratitude.

There is no need for greed or fear. The world does not need to function the way we insist that is does. We are just riding along the edges of creation along with everything else, swirling around God. When we try to make ourselves the center and have things swirl around us, it only causes dangerous eddies that hurt us and the people around us.

So, love deeply and let go gratefully. “We came into this life unsheltered and all alone. That’s how we came and for sure that’s how we go out.” AMEN

* “That’s For Sure” from the 1974 album DRAGONFLY by Jefferson Starship

Proper 9 Year C: Plant Me Two Times

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Isaiah 66:10-14
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11


July 7, 2019   Abraham   Abbey Church

Planting and harvesting are both mentioned in two of our readings this morning, but they refer to very different things in each reading. In our Gospel story, Jesus tells the ministers he is commissioning to ask the Lord to send out laborers into his harvest. Jesus does not explain what he means, but since he sends the ministers to proclaim peace, maybe what he means is: “God has planted eternal life into all hearts. It is now your job to let the people know that, and help them wake up to that gift.” Not everyone responds the same way to the good news of God’s grace, but that is ok – the kingdom of God is near to us all.

In the letter to Galatia, Paul talks about planting and harvesting, but this time, it is not about what God has planted, but about what we plant in our own worlds, and the effect of our actions. If we do good, then that good will ripple out and be of benefit to all. If we do bad, then that bad will ripple out and be of detriment to all.

And yet, God’s gift of Love from the gospel story is still in our hearts. The bad we do can not take it away. We can not undo God’s grace, but we sure can hide it under a lot of fear and pride. God’s gift of life and love will eventually win out over all the self-imposed darkness that we all send into the world, but why not just come to our senses and stop trying to hinder grace with our self-inflicted pain? Why not rather add love to Love? It makes the world much better for everyone. We can do it, and we know that we will. But we also know that we will fail, and fall, and sin. That is not ok, but it is not the end. That’s when God’s grace saves us from ourselves.

So now, while the harvest is plentiful, may we, by planting good with our own lives, help awaken the gracious gift of eternal life, love, peace and joy in the lives of those around us. It has already been given by God, we just need to show people how to open up to it. And may we be open to the people around us helping us to awaken to God’s gift in our own lives.   AMEN

Born To Be Mild: All Saints Day 2018

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Wisdom 3:1-9
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

November 1, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

God does not call us to be more than ourselves. Being more than ourselves would not make us more than human, it would simply make us not human. Being a Christian means acknowledging that being human is good enough for God, because God chose to become human. And as all humans, Jesus grew. So we must grow. We must become mature and complete in Christ – and that means becoming more truly our unique selves. We often hear, in this church building, the call to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. We can all too easily dwell on the “sacrifice” part of that call while forgetting about the “living” part of that call. We are called to full life as God’s children.

We are called many other things in scripture: the saints of God, a nation of priests, a city on a hill, the light of the world, the temple of God, the salt of the earth, the Rose of Sharon, a new creation, the body of Christ (the fullness of him who fills all things), joint heirs with Christ (and therefore his family). We are also called sinners, and that makes it even more wonderful that God calls us his children. We are not yet perfect, but we are called to perfection – not a perfection based on rules and regulations, but a perfection based on fullness. There is a Chinese proverb which says: “A mature and integrated human is like jade: Its flaws not concealing its beauty, nor its beauty concealing its flaws.” We are called to that kind of perfection, and yet how rarely we live up to it.

We are not there yet; we still have a lot of growing to do, and we always will. We need to admit it to ourselves and also realize that everyone around us has a lot of growing to do. We do not like to be called evil and stupid just because we do wrong things, and so we should never use those words on others. Other people’s sins might be visible to the whole world, but ours are more likely hidden because they are deeper and far worse. If we want mercy and grace to grow then we must give it to others. That does not mean that we excuse wrongdoing, but it does mean that we always respect the wrongdoer as much a child of God as we are. It also does not mean that since we are to grow into our unique selves that we can be so eccentric that it makes life difficult for others.

So, here we are, surrounded by saints: living ones sitting next to us and dead ones sitting in little boxes in a corner of the church and in big boxes in the cemetery. We are also surrounded by the saints in heaven (which I guess means that heaven is surrounding us). We now a lot about some, a little about others, and nothing about most. All we know is they are being brought to perfection by God in ways that God calls perfect, not in ways that we call perfect. They are a great cloud of witnesses. They show us how to live, they watch us, and in ways we can’t understand, they help us to grow. May we do the same for others, and as we gather up here around the altar, let us remember them and each other, and be thankful.   AMEN

Proper 20 Year B: Tough Work If You Can Get It, And You Can Get It If You Try

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Jeremiah 11:18-20
James3:13-4:3,7,8a
Mark 9:30-37

September 23, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

Jeremiah was given a tough job, and he was rewarded for his efforts by being jailed and ridiculed and eventually dragged off to Egypt – a place where he warned people to not go. His tough job was that of merely telling the truth. He, like almost everyone at that time and location could see that Babylon would soon conquer his nation, as it had conquered all other nations in the area. Even though everyone saw what was happening politically and militarily in the region, many people in power kept their power by assuring others that God would protect their nation, since it was chosen by God. Jeremiah asked the uncomfortable question of why the people in power were praying to false gods rather than the God whom they publicly claimed would help them. He also pointed out the uncomfortable truth that since they had secretly turned their backs on God, God would publicly turn his back on them. We heard a bit of Jeremiah in the first reading this morning talking about his difficult job. He asks to see God’s retribution upon the people who have made his life so hard. Hopefully Jeremiah calmed down later and did the Christian thing by forgiving his persecutors, just like all us Christians here always do.

James (whom we heard in our second reading) was given a tough job, and he has was rewarded for his efforts by having his letter belittled by Martin Luther. His tough job was one of telling people that faith produces works. Most of the bitterness of the Reformation has now settled down, so most people on all sides can see James’s point, but there are still some people either using his letter as a weapon against people with whom they disagree, or trying to explain away the parts of it that don’t agree with their party line. Hopefully the many people from so many different denominations that gather together here won’t ever start a fight: Lutherans with copies of the Letter to the Romans, Catholics with copies of the Letter of James, Anabaptists refusing to join the fight, and Calvinists standing back watching, knowing that the outcome is preordained anyway.

Jesus (whom we heard in our Gospel story) was also given a tough job and he was rewarded for his efforts by being crucified. Jesus was surrounded by disciples who don’t seem to have understood him, but who are we to judge – we still don’t really understand Jesus. The resurrection maybe did compensate for the hard time Jesus had, but we are still making his life rough by doing exactly the same stupid things the disciples did, and worse.

The tough jobs we have talked about this morning involve telling people things that might make them uncomfortable. Many times we find ourselves in the same situation – something needs to be said, and no matter what we say, someone will take it wrongly or as an attack, or misinterpret it. We all sometimes need to do the talking, and we all sometimes need to do the listening, and we all do both jobs well sometimes and badly other times. That’s ok, no one is perfect, and usually we all eventually settle down and get along with each other.

Probably, none of us is ever going to be given the job of saying things of such importance as Jeremiah or James or Jesus. When we do sense the need to say something about something, we need to do it humbly, realizing that we could be wrong, and also realizing that just because we don’t like something, that does not make it wrong or bad or stupid. Most people already know all of our preferences, and they really don’t want to hear about them again. It is also important to remember to listen to other people, because even if we disagree with them, they might be right and we might be wrong. It is especially important to remember to listen to people who have said things in the past with which we disagree, or who come from groups with which we tend to disagree, because sometimes they just might say things that need to be said, even if they say it in harmful or hurtful ways. The Kingdom of God comes to the little child (full of questions), not to the people at the front of the line yelling out answers. So, with Jeremiah and James looking on and joining us, we come to this table to be fed by Jesus. He is the one we really need to listen to, and he does tend to use the unexpected person or event as his mouth.   AMEN

Proper 8 Year B: Exit Finite; Enter Infinite

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Wisdom 1:13-15,2:23-24
II Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43

July 1, 2018   Abraham   Abbey Church

The little girl and the woman in our gospel story this morning were both healed by Jesus, but it is a safe assumption that they both eventually died. Humans die. Jesus died. Jesus is fully human, as well as fully God. In some unexplainable way, that means that God had also experienced death. Impossible, but true. But, since Jesus is fully God and fully human, it also means that he not only experienced death, he also experienced fully human eternal life.

In our first reading, Solomon says that we are created as the image of God’s eternity, but we choose death through envy. God creates us for eternal joy, but we desperately want so much less, so we kill our eternal joy and try to fill the void with other things, doing anything we can to fill that infinite space with the finite things around us – even if that means taking them from other people. And so sin and death enter the world.

The things around us are not bad; they are good. They are just not God. Anything that is not God is less than God. So, we should take Paul’s advice from our second reading this morning. He is writing to people who have more than they need, asking them to give to people who have less than they need. They are not forced to do so; it is voluntary – giving must be voluntary in order to negate lifekilling envy. Giving is what God does.

It is not easy on the surface, but in terms of eternal joy, it is worth it. Letting go of our finite resource of things, time, and energy opens us up so that the infinite joy of God can fill us. We don’t always freely give of ourselves all the time, and we all know it. That does not mean we are evil. It means we are tired and worried. Jesus knows that; he was also tired and worried, and so doesn’t mind it sometimes when we just give up and have to let Jesus give through us (but even doing that is a form of giving: giving up our self-righteousness). It takes time and work, but mostly it takes grace. So it is a good thing that God is gracious and that God gives. God gives eternal life, and every time we refuse it, God offers it again.   AMEN