Category Archives: audio sermons
September 5, 2021, Neiman Marcus and the Kingdom of God, James 2:1-4 – guest speaker Carroll Boswell
to listen to this sermon, click here: Possibly everyone has heard of Neiman-Marcus, though probably none of us here have been in one. It is a luxury department store with its headquarters in Dallas. It caters to the very wealthy. It would be embarrassing to even go into one of them unless you had some …
August 22, 2021, Put on the Full Armor, Ephesians 6:10-20 – Mtr Kathryn Boswell
The reading from Ephesians today conjures up images of Roman centurions in old-time armor. But we still wear armor nowadays. People in the military wear armor. Firefighters and people in law enforcement wear armor. And there are other kinds of protection that we put on. Bicycle helmets for cyclists, knee pads and other protective gear …
August 15, 2021, The House That Wisdom Built, Proverbs 9:1-6 – Carroll Boswell, guest speaker
The subject for today is wisdom so we will read a lot from Proverbs. The book of Proverbs urges people to seek out three special things: knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Proverbs urges us to pursue these things as of first importance. For example, Proverbs 2:1-5, 9-12a “My son [or daughter], if you receive my words …
August 8, 2021, Are You Hungry? John 6:35,45-51 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell
It became kind of a joke during the pandemic lockdown how everybody suddenly seemed to be learning to make sourdough bread – so many people, that stores started running out of flour in a lot of places. It was funny “ha ha”, partly because making sourdough is such a long, smelly, messy process. But people …
July 25, 2021, A Thing of Unreasonable Abundance, Mark 6:30-44 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell
The gospel today should have a very familiar ring for us, not only because it’s one of the best-known stories about Jesus, but because feeding people is something we do here at St. Philip’s. In fact, feeding people seems to be in our DNA. I remember reading the early records of our church, and way …
July 18, 2021, Comfort and Affliction, Mark 6:30-34 and 53-56 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell
To listen to this sermon, click here: At least four different people, Finley Peter Dunne, John Kenneth Galbraith, Lucille Clifton and Reinhold Niebuhr are credited with the phrase “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted,” referring to everything from the media to poetry to God himself. And certainly it is the nature of anything …
July 11, 2021, Who Put the Fun in Dysfunctional?, Mark 6:14-29 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell
A good friend of mine has a magnet on her refrigerator that says, “My family puts the FUN in dysfunctional.” Family dysfunction is a little more out-in-the-open than it used to be, but it has always been one of the central places of suffering in our society. I grew up with a father who was …
July 4, 2021, Finding God in the Ordinary, Mark 6:1-6 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell
We might think that if God himself walked into St. Philip’s, if Jesus opened those front doors some Sunday morning and came in and sat down in one of our pews, surely we’d know him right away. We would fall to our knees in worship and adoration and joy as soon as we saw him. …
June 27, 2021, A Many Splendored Thing, Mark 5:21-43 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell
Before we moved to Norwood, we lived in Potsdam, on Cherry Street. We still had kids at home back then, and Victoria, our puppy-loving daughter, made friends with one of our neighbors who had just adopted a puppy from the shelter – a collie/husky mix just a few months old. Every day Victoria, who was …
June 20, 2021, The Wind and the Waves and the Fear of God, Mark 4:35-41 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell
The Sea of Galilee is notorious for having sudden and terrible storms just like the one Mark describes. Peter and the other apostles were in a little fishing boat in a worse storm than most of us have ever seen. The waves kept rising higher and higher, washing over the sides of the boat. The …
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