The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of comfort and care and compassion and love which every single person made in God’s image has the dignity and respect that they were made with. Every single person gets to enjoy and flourish and thrive. It is a beautiful image. This is what those 70 people are meant to go and proclaim, the Kingdom of God has come near.
Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”
I don’t know about you, but I think Jesus sounded rather cranky in the Gospel today. He is not quite the all-loving, all-patient, all-calm, all-compassionate Jesus that we are used to. He is still compassionate, it’s not like he lost it. When the Samaritans reject him and the Disciples wanted to rain down fire upon them and destroy them, Jesus said no. He has compassion on the Samaritans, and he rebukes the Disciples for suggesting such a thing.
Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”
Wow! What a fantastical story! We have a man who lives in the tombs and is possessed by a legion of demons who seize control of him causing people to chain and shackle him up. But he breaks free and runs off into the wild. And when Jesus commands the spirits to come out of the man there’s this whole conversation with the spirits begging Jesus to let them go into some pigs. And Jesus gives them permission! And then the pigs rush down the bank into the lake and drown. WOW! This is crazy! WHAT is happening here? Let’s take a look at these characters and some context and ask together, “What does Jesus do here? How is the nature of God revealed? What do we learn about God and ourselves? And finally, what is this story inviting us to do?
Listen to or read Ryan’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”
The paths we take on our faith journey are as different and complex as each one of us. The path is smooth or rough at different places. The stumbling blocks for each of us are found here or there. The mountains, valleys, and oases are at different places along the way. If you stop and be still, or if you turn and look around, you can discover that God is with you, delighted to be on the path with you.
Read Nancy’s full sermon for Trinity Sunday by clicking “Read More.”
If there is one essential message in this Pentecost story, it is that we are not as different from one another as we think we are. We are not the stranger we assume we are. We are not the foreigners we fear we are. Our needs are not so different from the needs of others. We are more alike than we are different.
Listen to or read Bishop Akiyama’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”
Pontius Pilate was the Roman Procurator of Palestine during the reign of Tiberius. Though he commanded a Roman legion of 4500 soldiers, his was not a plush assignment. Saddled with governing one of the frontier provinces of the Roman Empire he spent most of his time in Caesarea Maritime where the weather was reasonably decent and where he was able to have minimal contact with the stubbornly unruly inhabitants of the region under his control. Only on high holy days did Pilate trouble himself to go into Jerusalem so as to be present should any sort of problem arise. Still, he was the face of the Roman Empire in that part of the world, and as such, he literally had the power of life or death over the people under his control. Yet, for all the trappings that went with his position, it is quite possible that Pontius Pilate would have lived and died utterly forgotten by history had it not been for one fateful day when he crossed paths with a Galilean Jew named Jesus of Nazareth.
Listen to or read Sharon’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”
