Sermons on Spiritual Life (Page 13)

Restoration

            Environmental devastation is not new to humans.  In the early settlements of what became Massachusetts, the forests were nearly demolished because of the conversion of trees toward building and fuel.  Primarily fuel, I would think. Today they are replenished, very likely because fuel now comes from fossil sources and wood comes from other parts of the planet.  It’s a mixed story.             Those of us of a certain age might recall when the Cuyahoga River in Pennsylvania caught fire…

Abundance

Season of Creation – Abundance Deuteronomy 8:7-18; Psalm 19; Revelation 22:1-5; Matthew 6:25-34 My preaching assignment today, during this Season of Creation, is to talk about Abundance.  It is my abundant pleasure to do so.  It is also abundantly daunting!  In English, the words “abundance” and “undulation” are related.  You can hear it. The shared letters between the two mean “wave.”  And whereas undulation means “waviness”, abundance means “from a wave.”  So when we talk about abundance, there is  one…

The Bread of Life

The 13th Sunday After Pentecost Proper 16 – Year B Berkeley D. Johnson, III Good morning! We find ourselves, once again, and for the third week in a row, in the 6th chapter of the Gospel According to John, where Jesus speaks of himself as the Bread of Life, or the Bread from Heaven. Someone – and it’s not just the lectionary redactors – is trying to send us a message, so let’s take one more look at it before…

Another Kind of Christian Life

Rev. Brian Stein-Webber Pentecost 12 John 6:1-58 St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church, Los Osos     One of the marks of a Christian person is adherence to a certain set of beliefs.  For Episcopalians and Lutherans, to take two, this means coinciding our belief with the historical creeds, the Apostles’, the Nicene, the Athanasian.  This type of faith is a matter of cognitive assent, if you understand what I’m saying.  It goes into our brains and out of our brains.  I remember…

God In The Flesh

Proper 14B                        1 Kings 19:4-8 Ephesians 4:25-5:2                    John 6:35, 41-51 The Rev. Susan Plucker                    August 8, 2021 Our scripture readings begin this morning with  The prophet Elijah alone and literally exhausted to death. Elijah has been battling for God against the dark forces     Of Queen Jezebel and her priests of the god Baal.         Elijah and God have won.  The priests of Baal are all…

The Work of God

Ephesians 4:1-16John 6:24-35 I recently called a carpet cleaner. I had three possible times to get the carpets in Jill’s office cleaned and I was looking for someone who could come at one of those specific times. I started with a Los Osos company. Jerry answered and said “Now don’t I know you?” I didn’t think so but said that we had met when he had cleaned these carpets before. He paused and said something like, “You’re the wife of…

Your Inner Hammock

My car needs cleaning. Not so much the outside but the inside. I have been transporting stuff that I haven’t figured out where to put and also my golf clubs because then they’re there when I need them. Then I dropped a bag of Indian snacks that I was busy snacking on, and all those little yellow bits fell between the seats, And then just the other day I had to pick up a microwave from Best Buy. I thought…