Category: Sermons

by The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Psalm 67; Matthew 15:21-28

“Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” –Matthew 15:28

One of the memorable people of my growing up years was my Aunt Amanda.  Born in England about the year 1880, she came as a young person to this country to work in the textile mills of Massachusetts.  I used to visit her often as a little boy when I went with my parents to stay with family members in New Bedford before and during World War II.  I will never forget a conversation we had one day walking home from an early Sunday morning communion service at St. Martin’s Church there.  It was sometime in the Spring of 1940.  Hitler’s success in defeating the Allies led to a siege of England, and the Luftwaffe, the Nazis air force, was devastating English cities.  Amanda’s roots were at Coventry, the center of which was totally destroyed by the bombing, and she had lost family members in the blitz. 

by The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley

I Kings 19:9-18; Psalm 29; Matthew 14:22-33

“Don’t worry.  It’s me.  Don’t be afraid.” –Matthew 14:30

One morning in August a few years ago, I stood looking out our front door when all at once there came a great roar — it reminded me of the engine of a Boeing 747 — and I watched a violent wind twist the trunk of a towering willow tree at the corner of the yard, perhaps a foot in diameter, and snap it off as if it were no bigger than a matchstick.  And another time, a similar storm overrode all the surge protectors in our house, blew out the modem on Roberta’s computer and the sensors which control our garage door openers.  These were convincing reminders that we are children of Mother Nature, though they amounted to minor and local interruptions of our routine, were soon repaired as one of the prices we learn to live within a complex world. 

by The Rev. Darrell Huddleston

1 Kngs. 3:5-12; Ps. 119:129-136; Rom. 8:26-39; Mt. 13:31-33, 44-52

In our gospel lesson, Jesus bombards us with one parable after another, all starting with the phrase, “The Kingdom of heaven is like…”    …a mustard seed and yeast, a buried treasure and a pearl of great price and a fish dragnet.  Two twined images and a solitary concluding one carrying the theme of hiddenness and searching.   The Kingdom is hidden and is something to be discovered.

Perhaps a better phrase for ‘kingdom’ is ‘reign of God’ as the former implies that it might be a place, or only some ideal that will only be known in the future, certainly not in our sordid mess of a world.  The ‘reign of God’, Jesus tells us, can be discovered in the here and now. 

The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley

Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139:1-12,23-24; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place –and

I did not know it!”  And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place!  It is none

other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

The cases of great figures cut down to size function as civic morality tales because, however good most people are most of the time, temptation is universal. Lust, greed, ambition, envy, fear – choose one. Or three. Every human must navigate the triple labyrinth of animal impulse, rational awareness, and moral choice. No one is immune from the recognition to which St. Paul came: “For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Romans 7: 19) It takes nothing away from the gravity of criminal acts, or the unacceptability of the exploitation by the powerful of the weak, to see in the courtroom contest between truth and deceit a process that implicates observers as well as antagonists.

by The Rev. Darrell Huddleston

Gen.  25:19-24; Ps. 65:9-14; Rm. 8:1-11; Mt. 13:1-9, 18-23

This is one of those parables of Jesus that preaches itself.  The Parable of the Sower:  The Soil, the Seed, and the Sower.  Three parts to it and all related.  The Greek word parable (παραβολn, ‘parabole’) means “something cast beside” something else in order to explain or clarify it. The great NT scholar C. H. Dodd said, “…the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” (Parables of the Kingdom, p. 5)

The dictionary defines parable as “A simple tale told to illustrate a moral truth.” But Jesus’ parables are not simple, moralistic tales, but complex, profound stories.  There is mystery to them; there is a depth, an open-endedness, which makes us see something new when we read them over and over.

by Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley

Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21; Matthew 14:13-21

When he came ashore and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them. –Matthew 14:14

Let me begin by stretching our imaginations.  Today’s Gospel is one of the most familiar in the New Testament.  It is the only story of its kind recounted in all four Gospels, the feeding of a vast number of people:  Matthew and Mark each say 5000 men.  We are told that they are in a wilderness place, somewhere near the Lake of Galilee.  There are no interstates to get there, and no traffic jams.  Maybe you rode a donkey, most likely you walked, and if you came from as far away as Jerusalem because you were attracted to go hear Jesus preach, that might have been a journey of several days.

As the passage begins, Jesus has withdrawn by boat to a remote place — presumably to pray with his disciples.  Word comes to him that a crowd has assembled.  When he lands and sees the expectant crowd, he is filled with compassion, and he heals the sick. 

by The Rev. Darrell Huddleston

Jer. 28:5-9; Ps. 89:1-4, 15-18; Rm. 6:12-23; Mt. 10:40-42

This is one of those Sundays when the gospel lesson has been isolated from its context.  Most Bible verses do not live in isolation.  There is context and the context for these three verses is the preceding thirty-five.  Chapter 10:5b-42 is of one piece and it is known as “The Missionary Discourse.

A brief summary of it:

Be alive and active in mission and spreading the “Good News.”

Don’t worry about material possessions.

Don’t worry what others think of you; in fact, you may be hated by others, even by your own family.

Loyalty to God in Christ comes first, even before family.

Don’t fear those who can kill the body, but the one who can kill body and soul.

Pick up the cross and follow Christ.

Trust in God.  If God cares even for the sparrows God will care for us.

Practice hospitality.  In receiving from you they receive Christ.

Let me read just the preceding six verses to give you a sense of what he said: