Readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A) This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Sunday May 21, 2023. Today is the last Sunday before my three-month Sabbatical; and today’s Gospel comes from the final section of the Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John.[1] Scholars divide the Gospel of John […]

Readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year A) This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Sunday May 14, 2023. O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we may obtain your promises, which exceed […]

Readings for the Feast Day of Frances Perkins This reflection was shared at Sacred Saunter Outdoor Eucharist on Saturday May 13, 2023 at Sequoia Park in Eureka.  Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve a President of the United States as a member of the cabinet. Born in Boston on April 10, 1880, and […]

Readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year A) This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Sunday May 7, 2023. This weekend, our Anglican siblings across the pond celebrated an elaborate Eucharist as they crowned their new king, Charles III, at Westminster Abbey, an ancient building that was filled with people singing […]

Readings for John Rex White’s Celebration of Life. This homily was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on May 6, 2023. During my last visit with Rex, we walked together among the redwood trees in Redway, along a path that he called his “Sacred Saunter.” We stopped by the Eel River, where he would often […]

Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A) This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Good Shepherd Sunday April 30, 2023. The dominant image found within the earliest Christian art of the ancient catacombs in Rome, Sicily, and Naples is not the image of the cross or crucifix which later dominated […]

Readings for the Third Sunday of Easter (Year A) This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Sunday April 23, 2023. Last Sunday was Holy Humor Sunday, but the Easter laughter (the risus paschalis) persists in today’s Gospel reading in which Jesus seems to play a kind of practical joke on the disciples […]

Readings for Easter Sunday (Year A) This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Easter Sunday April 9, 2023. Happy Easter! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! ALLELUIA! Throughout this Lenten season we’ve engaged our senses by listening to the wind with Nicodemus, by savoring the water with the Samaritan woman, […]

Readings for the Easter Vigil (Year A) Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea]Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all]Ezekiel 36:24-28 [A new heart and a new spirit]Zephaniah 3:14-20 [The gathering of God’s people] Romans 6:3-11Psalm 114Matthew 28:1-10 This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA at the Great Vigil of Easter […]

Readings for Good Friday Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Psalm 22 Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 John 19:1-37 This sermon was preached on Good Friday at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on April 7, 2023.  The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John, which we just heard, has tragically been used by Christians throughout history to justify anti-Jewish violence. […]