Proper 10, Year B. July 11th, 2021. Mark 6:14-29. Herod Beheads John the Baptist Synopsis: Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, arrested John the Baptist for preaching that his marriage to his brother’s former wife was not right in God’s eyes. This caused Herod’s new wife, Herodias, to desire John’s death. At Herod’s birthday, when he was drunk, she finally had her chance, and John’s head wound up on a platter at the dinner table. Well… that Gospel reading isn’t a bedtime…
It’s Okay to Leave Your safety Net Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany Simon Peter and his brother Andrew didn’t attend career day during their Sr. Year in High School. They never sat around a warm fire on a chilly evening and talked with their father about what they wanted to do when they grew up. There was only one option, they would be fishermen on the Sea of Galilee for their entire lives. Today, some children know they will take over their family business after they have completed college and then earned an MBA…
God Will Redeem the Difficulties I read an article recently from the British Broadcasting Network about a town in Nigeria celebrating their tiny village’s renaming. The name was “The village of idiots.” Some 70 years ago, the people settled too close to a river known as “The idiotic river.” One man from there said, “It was shameful telling people that I came from the “area of idiots.” So, the village elder decided to finally change the name. The area of idiots down by the idiotic river got a new…
Sermon Proper 24, Year A – Matthew 22:15-22 Are you familiar with the term internet troll? The Wikipedia definition is “A person who posts inflammatory messages to provoke an emotional response.” That sounds direct enough, but it’s too sterile. It doesn’t convey the emotional disdain caused by said group of people. Instead, let’s look at The Urban Dictionary—it will tell you what words really mean. This is slightly “edited.” An internet troll is an attention—“grabber”—who posts stupid comments on websites in an attempt to get a reaction towards themselves so that someone…
Series: Leaning into the Peace of God. Sermon: Silencing the Unforgiving Voices Sermon by Fr. Rian Adams. Proper 19, Year A. Matthew 18:21-35 Last week I started a series on leaning into the peace of God. The first sermon was how peace of mind comes when we work through conflicts. This week I’m continuing the theme of leaning into God’s peace be facing another form of conflict… conflict with the self. Intro: “Dentists Are Seeing an Epidemic of Cracked Teeth,” said a headline in the New York Times last Tuesday.[1] The author, Tammy Chen…
Series: Leaning into the Peace of God. Sermon, Pride, Prejudice, and Peace Sermon by Fr. Rian Adams. Proper 20, Jonah 3:10-4:11 Introduction: Let me tell you a story about how religious exclusion is born. Pride needs all the right answers. Before long, the addiction to certainty strangles love. To maintain certainty, fear requires hundreds of hours and dollars looking for authorities that agree with its position. When fear empowers pride, prejudice is born. Finally, the God of their own making gets involved. That’s when “those people” can be persecuted because they are…