Sermons

The time has come for Jesus to be glorified. The time has come for Jesus to let go of his life for the redemption of the cosmos…As Jesus draws all people to himself he sets the example and tells his followers what they must do to follow him.

As we move closer to Easter, and closer to the baptismal font, the Church couldn’t be any clearer: it is by grace that we have been saved not through anything we have done or can do or will do on our own.

During the season of Lent, when the church calls us to reflect on our mortality and renew our commitment to following Jesus, we need all the reminders we can get that Jesus’ Way of Love is not the way of power.

Fred Shuttlesworth said, “You have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live.” That’s exactly what Jesus tells his disciples through time in this passage. It’s what the church asks us to contemplate as we move toward the font at the Easter Vigil and engage this Lent in discipling not disciplining. That’s good news!

Disicpling, not disciplining. Spiritual disciplines, to grow as Jesus’ disciples. Growing as Jesus’ disciples, not punishing ourselves simply because it is Lent.

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for Ash Wednesday 2021, February 17, was based on the below manuscript. The sermon was written as a response to 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10. Today in his second letter to the Corinthians,Paul writes a shorter versionof the invitation to a Holy Lent.“We

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for February 14, was based on the below manuscript. The Biblical texts for the day were for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany. Today from the Hebrew Scriptureswe have Elisha saying goodbyeto Elijah.Elijah knows he’s leaving.Apparently the schools of prophetsthe congregations

I know that part of it is that I’m not resting enough. Part of it too, friends, is that I haven’t prayed enough. There’s so much work to do! How do I sit and breathe deeply to say Morning Prayer? Isn’t at least a cursory saying of the psalms enough? Turns out, no!

I’m no sooner to blame every malady in the world on demons than I am to call every minor inconvenience a cross to bear. But what if we were to see that there are powers that seek to corrupt and destroy the creatures of God? I think we may well only be able to answer Jesus’ call and believe in his authority if we believe in his authority over something.

Jesus’ call to us, is the same as the call to these four: Repent, and believe the good news. The Kingdom of God has come near. What does that mean? It means looking for and noticing, all good gifts from God. It means paying attention to when we’re stirred up beyond our typical human selfishness, seeing light in the darkness, Jesus triumphing over sin and death even as we’re surrounded by it.