Category Archives: Sermons
October 26, 2014, Pentecost 20 – Check the Owner’s Manual
To listen to this sermon, click here: 110305_001 I drive a little silver 1993 VW Passat that I have named the Bean. And since I know absolutely nothing about cars and engines and what magic it is that makes them start up when I turn the key in the ignition and move forward when I …
October 19, 2014, Pentecost 19 – A Matter of Taxes
To listen to this sermon, click here: 110226_001 There has been some consternation among Christians lately over a Texas mayor, who apparently subpoenaed the sermons of a few Houston pastors because they had supposedly been part of a movement to encourage the signing of a petition opposing the HERO – Houston Equal Rights Ordinance – …
October 12, 2014, Pentecost 18 – When God Gets Mad
To listen to this sermon, click here: 110219_001 We have a friendly but passionate controversy ongoing in our family, on the subject of discipline. We divide into two camps. Some of my children-who-are-now-parents follow the classical line of thinking about child discipline, with clear rules and clear consequences for breaking rules, including at times and …
October 5, 2014, Pentecost 17 – Grace in the Vineyard
To listen to this sermon click here: 110212_001 Previously in chapter 21 of Matthew’s gospel – the chief priests and the elders had come to Jesus, full of righteous indignation, because Jesus had gone into the Temple and had actually knocked over the tables of the people who were just going about their business selling …
September 28, 2014, Pentecost 16 – Instructed Eucharist
The service today was an instructed eucharist, so there was no sermon. Instead Mtr. Kathryn spent some time introducing the various parts of the worship and explaining the symbolism involved. To hear her teaching and the whole service – except for the hymns – click here: 110205_001
September 21, 2014, Pentecost 15 – The New Physics of Generosity
To listen to this sermon, click here: 110129_001 About five hundred years ago, a mathematician and astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus caused quite a commotion by proposing a radical idea – that the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth like everyone thought – but that the earth travels its orbit along with all the other planets …
September 14, 2014, Pentecost 14 – Forgiveness: A God’s Eye View
To listen to this sermon, click here: 110122_001 When we had our little farm, we got an aerial photograph of it from the US Geological Survey agency that does mapping. It was amazing to see our familiar farm from a completely new perspective. Sizes and relationships were very different from what they looked at ground …
September 7, 2014, Pentecost 13 – Inquisition or Rescue Mission?
To listen to this sermon, click here: 110115_001 Some of us here in this room today might be old enough to remember August 6, 1945, when the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped a five ton bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for the purpose of bringing an end at last to …
August 31, 2014, Pentecost 12 – The Way Forward
To listen to this sermon, click here: 110108_001 I noticed recently – though it might not be a recent thing – that the Watertown Times has begun to run horoscopes, so that people can look up their sign of the Zodiac and check out what’s going to happen to them in the next day or …
August 24, 2014, Pentecost 11 – Lego Blocks and Lively Stones
Following the recording of the sermon, there is music for meditation played by William Matson on the Irish harp. Click here to listen: 110101_001 In our upstairs hallway we have a dresser. There are two drawers in the dresser, and both of them are full to the top with lego blocks, and besides that there …
St. Philip's Episcopal Church 