Sermons

There is method to the apparent madness in how these sermons are arranged. They begin with the sermon I preached on the Sunday after our 45th President was elected in 2016. There’s a reason for that.

By the grace of God, the day after the election I had an appointment with my bishop already on the calendar. I spent that hour in his office like I spent nearly every other hour of Wednesday, November 9th, 2016: Out of control ugly-crying. My bishop was understanding and compassionate beyond measure, but I suspect he thought I was exaggerating when between sobs I choked out, “I’m gonna lose my pulpit!”

I hadn’t even thought about my sermon for the upcoming Sunday yet, but I knew I would have to say something about the election.

When I finally sat down to write, I chose my words carefully. I had never felt so vulnerable…yet so compelled to take such personal risk. Still, I was hopeful that by sharing something so uncharacteristically intimate (and clearly painful), my words would be received with compassion by those who had voted for the newly elected president, and with gratitude by those who had not.

Then three parishioners walked out in the middle of my sermon. One gentleman, with whom I had an especially close relationship despite our many political and theological differences, demanded afterwards that I “repent” in front the entire congregation. I knew right then I had been right about losing my pulpit. It was time for me to leave this parish I so loved and to follow an increasingly powerful call to political activism I’d been trying to ignore.

So I took early retirement, exited stage left, and began my new life.

That fateful post-election sermon was delivered on the Sunday known in the church year as, “The 26th Sunday after Pentecost.” Since that was my starting point, it made sense that the rest of these sermons should follow the church calendar, too. So while the reader may notice that I’ve bounced around among a number of chronological years, I’ve maintained the basic integrity of the liturgical one.