Sermons Archives - Page 4 of 53 - St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church

Resurrection’s Responsibility: Living God’s Rebellious Liberating Love for Others

March 31, 2024

“Every Easter, we hear those sublime words: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.” The Roman Empire had tried to crucify and kill the love of God incarnate, and they failed. Empire tried to contain, control, and seal up that incarnate love of God in a tomb, and they failed. Empires still try to control, crucify, and kill the most vulnerable of God’s beloved creatures. Jesus Christ, the love of God made flesh, crucified and risen, triumphs over all empires eternally. God’s liberating love always bursts free from cages, enclosures, and tombs of empire.”

Racial Healing Eucharist in celebration of Oscar Romero

March 24, 2024

by the Rev. Daniel Romero

Drifting Apart

March 17, 2024

“It never ceases to amaze me how easily the church, even our beloved Episcopal Church, slips into a kind of legalism, using scripture to lend credence to creating even more rules and rubrics, higher walls and thicker barriers, in a world already drifting apart, especially when all we crave is community, connection, and healing. We yearn to come together!”

Being a Holy Mothering Church with and for Our Holy Mothering God

March 10, 2024

“In the words of the African-American Spiritual, “sometimes we feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.” So, on this Mothering Sunday, in the wake of International Women’s Day, during this Women’s History Month, as we ponder today’s Scriptures from A Women’s Lectionary, we give thanks for people who shared God’s motherly love with us, and made us feel at home, so that we can share that love with those who feel like motherless children a long way from home.”

Rahab

March 3, 2024

Rahab’s story raises some important questions, such as: who is worthy of being safe? Who is worthy of being saved? Who is deserving of God’s blessing and favor for generations? Could this be the destiny of a prostitute?

Joint Guest Preachers for February 25

February 25, 2024

The Rev. Dr. Dorothy White and the Rev. Katie Ernst, preaching at our Racial Healing Eucharist to celebrate the consecration of Bishop Barbara Harris and the life of Anna Julia Haywood Cooper.

Sermon for February 18

February 18, 2024

“‘Goodbye, Earl’ was one of the last songs The Chicks played in the concert that night, and clearly one that everyone was there to hear. It’s a song about premeditated murder and abuse …. and I like it. But why?” (Content note: this sermon discusses domestic violence.)

Sparks of Connection

February 14, 2024

“The spiritual greats of our faith tradition tell us that fasting is an opportunity to draw closer to God. In giving something up for a short season, we create necessary space to focus new or renewed attention on our connection with God. I wish I could say this has worked for me. But, more often than not, when I am fasting, I seem to become more keenly aware of my appetites, my hunger, my grumbling stomach or my fuzzy decaffeinated brain. So, how is it that we cultivate space for God? Or, more importantly, how do we cultivate the desire to find our way across the gulfs between us and the one who made us?”

Sermon for the Feast of Absalom Jones

February 11, 2024

“This work of Justice: Becoming God’s Beloved Community is challenging. That is why I need to know that saints like Absalom Jones chose Christ’s love and friendship, in spite of slavery, in spite of heartbreak, in spite of violent, racist, demonic coloniality, My devotion to saints who embodied, lived, and worked as antiracist and decolonial agents of Christ’s reconciling love has become a slight obsession of mine. I want you to fall in love with these saints and to be as obsessed with them as I am.”

Liturgy and Dignity

February 11, 2024

“This is why we practice our faith together over and over with rituals and rites that affirm we are worthy of love and dignity, that we are created in the image and likeness of God. Because none of us can believe on our own, each and every day, that we are loveable and deserving of love. We have to hold this truth together in community, reminding and being reminded by one another, by the nearness of sacraments like Eucharist and baptism, by the stories of the saints and Jesus himself,.”

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