Claim OwnershipThe Rev Alissa: Sermons
Subscribed: 1Played: 0
Subscribe
© 2025 The Rev Alissa: Sermons
Description
A place to listen to sermons preached wherever I go as Canon to the Ordinary in the Episcopal Diocese of New York.
46 Episodes
Reverse
Send us a text "There are things that we will never know. That can be discouraging, but it can also be motivating... I don't love it. I don't love this idea that we will never know. But this is how we begin our Advent season: in the strangeness, and the darkness, and just the straight up honesty that there are things we will never know." Text: Matthew 24:36-44 Preached at All Saints, Manhattan on November 30, 2025
Send us a text "We meet the mother of Jesus in this gospel not when she gives birth to his physical body, but when she gives birth to his ministry, at the wedding in Cana. The first time we see Jesus mother in John is at the beginning of the second chapter – “on the third day there was a wedding in Cana at Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.”' text: Gospel of John, in particular chapter 2 and chapter 19 preached at Grace Church Manhattan for Good Friday
Send us a text " In this last night with his disciples before his big showdown with the Empire Jesus does not tease them, or intimidate them, or reassure them with a show of strength, or sign of power. Instead God incarnate puts a towel around his waist and serves them. And when he done scandalizing his friends with this act, he commands them to do the same, to love one another." text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35 Preached at Church of the Heavenly Rest, Manhattan, New York on Maundy Thursday
Send us a text "Today Jesus gets to sit and eat with the people who mean the most to him. These are friends who have walked with him for the past three years, who have loved him through everything. Martha, Mary, Lazarus, his apostles, the ones who know him best, right now. His chosen family. Each one of them has struggled with the reality of who Jesus is, and how to love him." text:John 12:1-8 Preached for Church of the Ascension, Mt. Vernon NY on the Fifth Sunday of Lent.
Send us a text " I suppose I have some things in common with the elder son in this morning's gospel lesson. Whenever I encounter this parable I find myself feeling the most empathy for him – out there in the field fuming and feeling lost while his father celebrates the son who has done so much damage. It is not fair. If I could give this parable a name I might call it “The parable of the resentful son.” Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 preached at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Manhattan fo...
Send us a text "Maybe this is how we all perish, friends. By living as if we can earn love and favor from God by just being better than, or separate from, other people." text: Luke 13:1-9 preached for St. Paul's Staten Island, Third Sunday of Lent 2025
Send us a text "It has been said that every preacher only has one sermon. The one core value that will show up in some way in every sermon she preaches. This morning we hear Jesus’ one sermon. In everything he says and does he will be preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. This is who Jesus belongs to." text: Luke 4:14-21 Preached for All Saints, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Send us a text "This epiphany season we are invited to imagine a God whose grace doesn’t need a reason to flow, a world where the waters of baptism flow into the wine of our feast without needing a broken body in between. That’s not our world, not the one we’ve got right now, but it is God’s world – it is what we must imagine." Text: John 2:1-11 preached for Christ's Church, Rye, New York
Send us a text "There is no one ritual that can make you perfect or worthy or whole, but there is one God who loves you enough to be with you – who shows up over and over in ordinary ways, through ordinary moments, and every religious practice we do together is meant to help us live like that is true." Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Preachd for St. Philip's Harlem, NYC 9/1/2024
Send us a text "What is interesting to me is not that some people leave Jesus here when things get real. What is interesting is that some of them stay. Jesus lays out the reality – following him is about to get hard, they will need to not just be next to him, basking in the wonder of his signs and miracles. They will not get to remain as they are, in the general vicinity of Jesus. No, to be with Jesus means devouring him – his suffering, his love, his choice to be human in this world fully al...
Send us a text “ for us, for Christians, there is no choosing the spiritual over the physical. Christians do not get to pick and choose what a life to experience and what to escape, and we are not called to anywhere but where we actually are.” Text: John 6:51-58 Preached for St Paul’s, Pleasant Valley, NY 8/18/2024
Send us a text “ We tend to think that belief means intellectual assent, or factual certainty. So if you hear that you need to believe in God, and in Jesus, you might think that you need to come to intellectual certainty about the existence of God or divinity of Jesus. We talk about ‘holding’ beliefs, as if they are ideas we put in boxes and save up. But just like the talk I give people about the beliefs we proclaim in our creeds, the belief Jesus is talking about here -in him- is not assent ...
Send us a text “ How was Bathsheba presented to you, the first time her story crossed your awareness? History and interpretation have been almost as cruel to this woman as her king was. She must have done something to provoke it – this is one of the most common tropes used to interpret this story. The innocent king driven mad by the seductress. Here is another one: they were in love! Bathsheba wanted it. Neither of these is the story our Bible tells.&nbs...
Send us a text "That’s the problem with strong men. It’s been a problem since the very first kingdom asked if they could have one. Strong men want to use the power we give them. They want to use the muscles they have. They want to provide borders and protection and they want to fight. So they make promises to us they cannot keep. They promise that we can feel safe. They promise that we don’t have to belong to the people beyond our borders, outside our walls. " Text: Mark 3:20-35 Preached at...
Send us a text " Because of our Trinity, we have permission to always be looking for a third way – because that’s what God does, and that’s who God is. We have permission, right there in the mysterious and unfathomable nature of our God, to be curious instead of defensive when we encounter ways of being, and living, and loving that we do not understand. " text: John 3:1-17 preached at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC
Send us a text "So here is the challenge: We will meet people on the path ahead who are not like us. Who do not share very many, or any of the identities that matter most to us. People who enjoy privilege we don’t, who defy norms we are used to. And some of those people, friends, are looking for Jesus. Some of those people are going to ask us the impossible question – what is to prevent me from being baptized? What is to prevent me from belonging to you, and with you, in your community of fai...
Send us a text "This is the commission that Jesus gives his community in the world, the little baby church, our ancestor. Forgive people, and love them. Forgive people and hold them fast, even when they doubt. Even when they don’t believe in the way that you do. " Preached for Christ Church, Warwick, NY text: John 20:19-31
Send us a text "Easter is not a fix, but it is an opening. Resurrection is an invitation. It is a stone rolled away, opening up possibilities we could never have dreamed on our own, God’s possibilities for justice and hope, after trauma, for healing after brokenness, and for life after death." Preached for Trinity St. Paul, St. Simon, St John, New Rochelle, NY text: Mark 16:1-8
Send us a text "Friends, love isn’t a resource that can be used up or spent up. It isn’t all we need – Love is all we are. It is the engine that runs the world, the only action worth taking, the only identity worth living. " Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35 Preached for St. Philip's, Harlem, New York
Send us a text "So if the resurrected and living body of Jesus is the answer – what is the question? Here it is: How do we survive, when the temple where we meet God and find our own identities as God’s people is destroyed? How can we be God’s people, if we don’t have a place to meet with God? " Preached for St. Philip's, Harlem, New York City. text: John 2:13-22
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States