Easter 6 – 5/10/26 – Adapting to the Kingdom
John 14:15-21 Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. ”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the…
Easter 5 – 5/3/26 – Knowing by Living
John 14:1-14 Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the…
Easter 4 – 4/26/26 – Choose Life
John 10:1-10 Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of…
Easter 3 – 4/19/26 – Unknowability of God
Luke 24:13-35 Now on that same day two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one…
Easter 2 – 4/12/26 – Faith Sets Us Free
Welcome to Bright Sunday! It’s a tradition in Christian churches to take the Sunday after Easter as a day to catch our breath after the solemnity of Lent and the triumph of Easter. Interestingly, it’s also known in Latin as Risus Paschalis – literally laughing Easter. Now, why is it called laughing Easter? Because God pulled the biggest joke of all time with Easter. You see, the authorities thought that Jesus, who had strangely accepted his fate without resistance, was…
Easter Day – 4/5/26 – The Whole Body is on the Path
Matthew 28:1-10 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the…
4/3/26 – Good Friday Sermon
Good Friday is always hard. It’s hard to spend time at the foot of the cross, as witnesses, as lovers of Jesus, and to hold just a fraction of the pain, and the horror, in our own bodies, just the smallest fraction of it. We know Easter’s coming, for those folks who actually stood with Jesus, for Mary, and Jesus’ mother, and the beloved disciple, their agony came with no promise of swift resolution, with the assurance that everything really…
4/2/26 – Maundy Thursday sermon
Recently, I was talking with someone who’d visited St. Ben’s for Sunday worship. They seemed pleased with their visit, they seemed satisfied with their experience of worship here, and of the liturgy. Yet something they said stayed with me: it was quite the show, they said, it was good theater. While I don’t think for a moment that these comments were intended to be disparaging in any way, they did have me thinking about what the experience of worship in…
Lent 5 – 3/22/26 – The Acceptance of Suffering
The video is missing the first few moments of the sermon because of a technical issue. John 11:1-45 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This…
Lent 4 – 3/15/26 – Does God Make Your Knees Tremble?
John 9:1-41 As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in…