Show Sermons by Preacher:
Jered Weber-Johnson | Craig Lemming | Marjorie D. Grevious | Barbara Mraz | Guest Preacher | All
Jesus speaks the words that echo across history: “It is finished.” Not “I am finished.” Not “This is the end.” But “It is finished”—the work of love, the work of reconciliation, the work of bearing the world’s brokenness.
Teachers did not wash the feet of their followers. Jesus challenges a system that says some people are less than others. The Roman system required free men to demonstrate their superiority through speech and action. In the act of washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus very deliberately and profoundly transgresses gender expectations.
“It’s hard to believe resurrection/freedom can happen when folx have been walking dead for so long…hungry for so long…low for so long. It is hard to believe that wins can happen for them when they have been told for so long that they were losing…losers…a lost cause. After white supremacy and patriarchy tells us we are nothing for so long, it is understandable that we come to underestimate others and ourselves, assuming that we’re just not ‘fill-in-the-blank’ enough to do the thing that needs to be done – that we long for and that the world needs.”
“How often do you and I experience testimonies – stories of God – that push against our understanding of how God has been revealed to us through scripture or through our own experience? How do we handle these conflicting narratives?”
“St. Brigid has been called the Lady of the Threshold. This image of threshold has also been used to represent navigating life’s transitions, birth, new careers, etc. An Episcopal priest named Robert Jennings wrote that transitions could also mean a test of character, a change of time, daily occasions when we transition from talking to listening, from being unaware to fully aware. In one way or another we are all on thresholds.”
At the heart of our baptismal vows is this same call from Jesus to each of us.
“Follow me” Jesus says.
“Stop being who you were supposed to be … and start being who you are meant to be.”
And what is that? Glad you asked.
We know what it’s like to hope that someone might meet our vulnerability with kindness instead of judgment. We know what it’s like to step out on the ledge of honesty and pray we won’t fall. And we also know this: Love grows in the spaces where we dare to be known.
Imagine if someone told you that next year Thanksgiving would be different. It would happen sometime in 2026, but you wouldn’t know the exact date, time, or even who the guests would be. How would you prepare? How could you plan for such an event? After all, food has a shelf life, and anyone who has cooked a turkey knows it doesn’t thaw overnight. Preparation is essential.
by the Rt. Rev. Craig Loya Watch the sermon recording on YouTube.
the Rev. Phillip Romine
“Saint Katharine is considered blessed because she chose to look beyond what was, to bang the drum for parity and equality, to continually walk toward the need and to act on her belief that God values and loves everyone without ceasing.”
by the Rev. Jeckonia Okoth
I wonder what was going in the mind of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini when she arrived in New York on March 31, 1889, accompanied by six other religious sisters. Did she see herself as an outsider coming in or as an insider coming home away from home? Let us fast-forward this: suppose someone from the Congo, or Libya or Sudan came in and wanted to start a religious order; what would be the response, and what kind of people would we see in that order?
Copyright © 2020 St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church
St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church
[email protected]
651.228.1172
60 Kent St N, St. Paul, MN 55102-2232
Map & Directions
