Sermons by The Rev. Linzi Stahlecker
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…
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…
Lent 3 – 3/8/26 – Conversation is Transformative
John 4:5-42 Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you,…
Lent 2 – 3/1/26 – May each of our lives be a blessing
Genesis 12:1-4a The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went,…
Lent 1 – 2/22/26 – Beware crafty voices
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said…