the Way to Many Mansions

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 […]

The Risen Christus Rex: Homily for John Rex White

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 […]

Finding Pasture

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 […]

The First Sacred Saunter: The Road to Emmaus

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 […]

Touch the Body of Christ: “Let Him Easter In Us”

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, […]

Wade in the Water: An Easter Vigil Sermon

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 […]

The Cross and an Interfaith Friendship: A Good Friday Homily

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. […]

Holy Monday Reflection: “More Clearly, Dearly, and Nearly”

This reflection was offered at the Christ Church Eureka Centering Prayer group on Holy Monday, April 3, 2023 Today is Holy Monday and it is also the feast day of St. Richard of Chichester, a 13th century missionary bishop who served poor fishermen and farmers throughout England and who died 770 years ago today, on April […]

The Episcopal Church (1888 – 2022)

A brief introduction to The Episcopal Church (1888 – 2022) for the Anglican Cycle of Prayer From 1880 to 1920, the American population would swell from 50 million to 105 million; and this dramatic increase in population brought with it a series of social and economic problems associated with urbanization, industrialization, an economic depression, and dangerous working […]

The Episcopal Church (1792 – 1888)

A brief introduction to The Episcopal Church (1792 – 1888) for the Anglican Cycle of Prayer By the end of the eighteenth century, the Protestant Episcopal Church had become one church among several others in the states. In 1817, the General Convention of the church established the General Theological Seminary in New York, the oldest seminary in […]