Mark 4:9

So what do we do when we are in desperate times, wondering if God has abandoned us? Well, many of us try to tough it out on our own. Instead of remembering that God is faithful to his people, we seek human solutions to alleviate our desperation. How’s that working out for you? I know it never has worked for me. No, as we have seen, we are called to remember, both collectively and individually, and then to rely on each other to remind ourselves that God never leaves us alone. In other words, we are to love each other and be there for each other when we sense God’s absence, just the way all healthy families help each other in good times and bad. Never underestimate the power of godly folk to help lighten your load as they walk with you through the dark valleys of life. The very act of remembering and relying on each other help us focus on God instead of ourselves. It reminds us to be patient and to trust God to act on our behalf in God’s good time and ways. That’s not easy for us god-wannabes but it is the only real option we have if we are not to totally lose heart and hope. When we remember, we are reminded that God is not some inconsistent ogre who delights in torturing us or who behaves erratically toward us as we do toward God and each other. God loved us enough to become human and die for us to free us from his just condemnation and an eternity apart from him, even while we were still sinners and his enemies. If God loves us that much, why would God abandon us now in our darkest hours? Continue reading →

Sermon delivered on Trinity Sunday C, June 12, 2022 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH. If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, click here. Lectionary texts: Proverbs 8.1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5.1-5; St. John … Continue reading →

Sermon delivered on Trinity Sunday C, June 12, 2022 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH. If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, click here. Lectionary texts: Acts 2.1-11; Psalm 104.26-37; Romans 8.14-17; John 14.8-17, 25-27. … Continue reading →

Sermon delivered on Ascension Sunday (transferred), May 29, 2022 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH. Father Wylie gets all whiny when we ask for a written manuscript. Nobody’s got time for a whiny priest, especially on Ascension Sunday, so … Continue reading →

Sermon delivered on Easter 6C, Sunday, May 22, 2022 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH. If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here. Lectionary texts: Acts16.9-15; Psalm … Continue reading →

Sermon delivered on Easter 5C, Sunday, May 15, 2022 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH. Father Wylie is a slug and gets all whiny when we ask for a written manuscript. Nobody’s got time for a whiny priest, especially … Continue reading →

Sermon delivered on Easter 5C, Sunday, May 8, 2022 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH. If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, click here. Lectionary texts: Acts 9:36-43; Psalms 23 and John 10:22 – … Continue reading →

In telling us this story, St. John is surely telling us that the power of Jesus is typically not made known in stunning ways, in ways the world recognizes as spectacular, although there are notable and numerous exceptions to this rule. Christ making all things new is not about razzle-dazzle or eye-popping special effects that we love to see at the movies. Instead, it is about the quiet way of Christ with his people, with St. Peter, with you and me, agapaoing us in all our unloveliness, forgiving all our failures and betrayals and denials, recognizing our limitations, but also seeing our potential and putting us to work for him, despite who we can be, out of his sheer grace and love for us. There is nothing we have said or not said, thought or not thought, done or not done that is beyond the healing love and forgiveness of our crucified and risen Savior, nothing that will not eventually be put to rights, even if we must wait for it to be put to rights in God’s new heavens and earth. If you cannot find real hope, real comfort, real healing in this reality and promise, my beloved, surely you are to be pitied most of all. St. Paul found it on the road to Damascus, St. Peter found it as have countless other Christians across time and cultures. Let us join this happy and forgiven throng so that like the psalmist in today’s lesson, we too can make the bold proclamation of conquering death through Christ our own! Continue reading →

Yes, in this world, we will have trouble. But Jesus encourages us, “Take heart; I have overcome the world.” And so, Christian, when you or those that you love are plagued by disease, when you’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death, remember that sickness and death don’t have the final word; Christ does. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, [they] will live” (John 11:25). When darkness overshadows you and evil seems to surround you, remember that God is making all things new, that His purposes and plans cannot be stopped, that “all things work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28). Continue reading →

Many of us still don’t anticipate the Resurrection of the Dead and like the women at Christ's Tomb, we remain afraid. But we needn’t be if we keep our eyes on the prize of Resurrection and new creation. And let’s be clear about the nature of our Ultimate Prize. Resurrection is about the continuity of bodily existence, albeit in radically new way. We’ll look at this more in two weeks. For right now, when the angels spoke of Christ being raised from the dead (as did Christ’s first followers) they had in mind bodily, physical existence, not some ephemeral disembodied state, the stuff of gnosticism and other new age religions. As St. Peter proclaimed in our NT lesson, the disciples ate, drank, and spoke with the Risen Lord. You don’t do that with a disembodied spirit. And as St. Paul proclaimed in our epistle lesson, Death is not finally destroyed until Christ returns to finish his saving work and the dead are raised. Our loved ones who have died in the faith of Christ are safely in Christ’s care and protection in heaven (Phil 1.21-23), but they are still dead and remain so until the time Christ gives them their new bodies patterned after his own. Resurrection is emphatically not about dying and going to heaven. It is about new bodily existence where we have bodies that are fitted to live in God’s new heavens and earth, a world that will surely be inexpressibly beautiful because God our Father is inexpressibly beautiful, a world where sickness and sighing and alienation and fear and anger and sorrow and madness and incompleteness are no more. More importantly, whatever that world looks like it will be a world where Death is abolished forever and we will never be separated from our loved ones who have died in the peace and love of Christ, no matter how hard their mortal death might have been. Best of all, we will never be separated from God our Father again the way we are now. As our first human ancestors enjoyed intimate fellowship with God in a way none of us can ever experience because of the Fall as we saw last night, so God promises to live directly with us in all his glory and we will be allowed to live in his direct Presence, all because of Christ’s saving Death on the Cross. It is the prize above all prizes, a prize that makes the prizes we strive for pale in comparison; it is worthy of our best striving, labor, and efforts to follow Christ and his Way. Nothing else will do because nothing else ends in life. This promised new world is made possible only by the love and power of God. None can attain it on their own, only by the mercy and grace of God manifested through Christ. When we keep our eyes on this prize, we are truly looking for the living among the living because we are looking at the only Power who can give us eternal life, Jesus Christ, our Crucified, Risen, and Ascended Lord. Resurrection is not a concept, my beloved, it is a person, and his Name is Jesus Christ, the only Son God. Without him we have no hope for real life, either in this world or the next, and all our other efforts to find life and meaning and purpose are utterly futile. When we seek the living among the living, i.e., when we seek to give our lives and ourselves totally to Christ and live as he calls us to live, we must keep our eyes on this prize of Resurrection and new creation. I cannot speak for you, but whenever I have taken my eyes off this prize, my search for the living invariably results in me looking for the living among the dead instead of the living. Listen if you have ears to hear. Continue reading →

Sermon delivered on Good Friday, April 15, 2022 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH. Father Sang gets all whiny when we ask for a written manuscript. Nobody’s got time for a whiny priest, especially on Good Friday, so click … Continue reading →

Through His death and His resurrection, Jesus put death to death. In our epistle lesson, Paul reminds of what took place after the foot washing. As Jesus & His disciples celebrated the Passover, He gave new significance to the elements of the meal, instituting the Lord’s Supper. Jesus said the bread was His body and the wine was “the new covenant in [His] blood” (1 Corinthians 11:24-25). Like the foot washing, the Last Supper pointed to Jesus’ impending death on the cross, that his body would be broke and His blood would be shed. Continue reading →

Everything has changed because of Christ crucified and raised from the dead. That’s why we call it the Good News of Jesus Christ! We are no longer dead people walking, but rather Christ’s own forever, sealed with his precious blood and confirmed every time we come to the Table to feed on his body and blood. No, if you really love your Lord and have even an inkling as to what great love has effected your salvation and changed the course of history forever, how can you possibly stay away from our Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil services? You will rob Easter Sunday of its great power and joy if you fail to participate in these saving events. And on an even more somber note, if you are unwilling to give Christ your all as you are able, especially this week, you are likely living a lie and a delusion regarding your relationship with Christ and you probably need to take it up with him in prayer. So let none of us be too hasty to celebrate the Pascha next Sunday without first pondering and agonizing and reflecting on the great and astonishing love of God that flows from God’s very heart, a heart that was pierced by a Roman soldier’s spear, a heart through which a saving love was poured out for you and your salvation. To be sure, this isn’t a pretty or fun thing to do or contemplate. But if you commit yourself to walking with Christ this Holy Week it will change you in ways you cannot imagine or envision, and for the good. It will help you recognize God’s visitation to you in Christ and it will change you because it is the Good News of our salvation. Continue reading →

But how do we make [the parable of the prodigal son] our own? But how do we make this parable our own? We aren’t part of ancient Israel looking for God to return to end our exile that this parable addresses in part. Or are we? Is there anyone here today, if you are old enough, who does not long for God to rescue us and those we love from our exile to Sin and Death? St. Paul in our epistle lesson has answers for us. We can make Christ’s parable about the prodigal son our own precisely because of what Christ has done for us in his Death and Resurrection. We have the hope of being rescued from Sin and Death because of Christ’s death on the cross, a Death that atoned for our sins, freed us from our slavery to the power of Sin, and restored us to a right relationship with God starting right now and lasting for all eternity. As we have seen before there is a great mystery in all this because all of us still sin in this mortal life, despite the NT’s claim that Sin’s power has been broken in us. Neither are we told how this all works, presumably because such knowledge is well above our pay grade and our salvation isn’t contingent on us having that knowledge. The NT simply insists that it is true and calls us to have faith to believe it despite its mystery and ambiguity and our unanswered questions. Like the ancient Israelites on the verge of entering the promised land, St. Paul calls us to look back to Christ’s Death so that we are able to look forward to the promise of Resurrection and new creation that Christ’s Resurrection signals.  Continue reading →

The offer the prophet announces is not for physical food, but for something more vital: that which nourishes the soul. Spiritual sustenance was also something God’s people lacked. At the beginning of v. 2, the prophet asks, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” The reason God’s people faced famines, plagues, attacks from their enemies, and exile from their land is because they had turned away from the God who had called them to be His people, brought them out slavery, and led them to the fruitful and abundant land they could call their home. Instead of worshipping God alone and following His commands, God’s people worshipped false gods, practiced sexual immorality, and oppressed the poor and helpless, taking advantage of the most vulnerable people in society to benefit themselves. They turned to sin and selfish ambition thinking they would bring happiness and contentment, but they would ultimately fail to deliver. We could say that God’s people had exchanged the lavish banquet God offered for a plate of gruel. Elsewhere, God puts it this way: “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). Continue reading →