The Sunday Sermon: Great Expectations

I want to register a complaint. Someone has tampered with my Bible. Just look at this Gospel reading: these verses don’t describe the Jesus I like to imagine, gentle Jesus meek and mild, who came to bring love and unity, to heal all wounds and to teach us from his limitless store of patience and … READ MORE…

The Sunday Sermon: God provides

Before I was a parish priest I served a children’s hospital as a chaplain. It was a rich experience and I was honored to be invited in to some of the most sacred moments of people’s lives. I got to see both the best and the worst of humanity working in my capacity at the … READ MORE…

The Sunday Sermon: Prayer: the Church’s Banquet

What do the following things have in common? The church calendar. A speech at the Republican National Convention. Chapel chairs. The Lord’s Prayer in Spanish. The weather. Dvorak’s String Quartet number 11. The office hours for the veterinarian. The hospitalization of a cathedral member. They are all thoughts that scampered through my head during my … READ MORE…

The Sunday Sermon: The Challenge of God’s Grace

St Paul’s welcomed the Rev Michael Kinnamon for both the forum and the sermon on Pride Sunday. Grace and peace to you in the name of our savior, Jesus Christ! I give thanks for the ministry God has done through the St. Paul’s community, including your ministry to the homeless, your support of Dorcas House, … READ MORE…

The Sunday Sermon: And who is our neighbor?

Luke 10:25-37 Come Holy Spirit: Touch our minds and think with them, touch our lips and speak with them and touch our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. AMEN. Different times in human history have gone by different names: the reformation, the renaissance, the age of reason, the Enlightenment. In our … READ MORE…

Gary’s story

Gary presented this story along with Colin’s sermon on The Power of Story on July 5.   Friday morning June 24th, I was at my favorite weekly event. At 8 a.m., I was breakfasting at Bread & Cie with our Dean and the cathedral’s “best and brightest” (just ask them). About 8:35 the thought entered … READ MORE…

The Sunday Sermon: The Power of Story

What a beautiful passage in today’s Gospel. It details the the next chapter in Luke’s steady development of Jesus’ followers from a small band of disciples to today’s seventy ambassadors, to the many thousands who, in Luke’s Book of Acts, will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to share God’s Good News with the world. … READ MORE…

The Sunday Sermon: We are not alone

“Jesus asked the man, ‘What is your name?’ And he answered ‘Legion’, for many demons had entered him”. The demons have indeed been legion this week. We are all still reeling from the Orlando attack, and in the midst of that horror, our local community dealt with two terrible events close to home: a shootout … READ MORE…

Meditation: Prayers for Pulse

For me it became real when a former parishioner texted me. He told me that he knew one of the victims. Brenda McCool lived in Barstow for a time. She was in the club with her son, dancing. She was there with him to celebrate him, to support him, to make sure he knew that … READ MORE…

An Ordination Sermon: Poets of the soul

Feast Day of St. Barnabas   Isaiah 42:5-12   Acts 11:19-30, 13:1-3   Psalm 112   Matthew 10:7-16   The Feast Day of St. Barnabas: The Ordination of Jacqueline Bray, Christopher Harris, Nancy Holland, and Richard Lee Jesus said, “As you go, proclaim the good news.” It’s amazing to see so many people here in church to celebrate the Feast … READ MORE…