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It is my practice to write my sermons on Saturday, then early on Sunday morning I preach it to an empty church.  I listen to my words to see if they make sense … and if necessary, I do a rewrite of portions of the sermon. This morning my first impulse was to rewrite the entire sermon … I just didn’t have time.
 
The reason is that mush of my sermon is about who I see God is, and describing God is an impossible task.  Nothing I say … or anyone else says … can fully describe this force-beyond-ourselves.  God is too big … too complex … so multidimensional that we can only explain our individual experience of this sacred, holy entity in very limited language.

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Well, Caren and I are back from our trip to Albuquerque to move our household goods.  In a nutshell, moving has been a nightmare.  We sold our house on Washington Street at the end of July, and closed on a house in Albuquerque in early August.  The movers came in a few days after the closing on our house in St. Augustine, but then there was delay upon delay … delay in loading … delay in transportation … and delay in delivery.  What was supposed to have been delivered in Albuquerque on August 8 didn’t show up until last Monday, August 22 … and then it was just half of the furniture, the rest was till in a warehouse in Jacksonville.  This second shipment has now arrived in Albuquerque and is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, and our daughter Jamie, and her husband Neal, will take delivery for us.  We left Albuquerque on Tuesday after the first part of the shipment was delivered, and after four days on the road we arrived back here in St. Augustine Friday evening.

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Sermon by Deacon Steve Seibert

​We are receiving a kingdom…
 
The visit I had with a patient in the hospital that morning was not a visit I felt very good about. As chaplains, we strive to be present with those we visit, to listen to them and, if it is the patient’s desire, to pray with them. I can promise you that I do not always hit those worthwhile goals. This woman was in pain and barely acknowledged me.  She was frail and was close to being in a fetal position.  What she did say, for most of the time I was in her room, was the Hail Mary – continually, beginning again as soon as she had finished. The Hail Mary is the prayer our Catholic brethren pray to Our Lord’s mother, using the greeting to Mary from Elizabeth when the pregnant cousins saw each other and ending with an intercession to Mary. I left her room feeling I had not been able to serve her very well in any capacity.

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Sermon by Fr. Mal Jopling

“I have come to bring fire to the earth! And you thought I had come to bring peace! Strife and division—that is what I’ve come to bring! I’ve come to split up families, divide homes, turn fathers against sons and mothers against daughters! It is fire that I am bringing!”

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Sermon by Fr. Mal Jopling

Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Fear is a powerful emotion. Many things frighten us in today’s world. The horror that unfolded in a Ulvalde Texas school or in a supermarket in Buffalo New York are stark reminders of the dangerous and fear filled world in which we reside. We are frightened to send our children to school and tragic events of the recent past can even make us fearful to come to church ourselves. We fear the stranger and the person who is “different” from us. Pandemics make us anxious about our health. We are fearful about the future.  Will I have enough money saved when I retire. How will global warming affect my children and grandchildren? We fear new ideas that challenge our traditional ways of thinking. We fear that which we cannot change, and then ironically, we fear change itself. We fear our own mortality and the inevitability of death.
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