Pentecost IX 2008
Fr. Joseph Scalisi
Have you ever felt like a failure? Like you had done something or failed to do something that disappointed someone or disappointed yourself? Maybe there was something you could have done to prevent what happened…or maybe it was completely beyond your control…but for whatever reason, you feel as though you failed in some important way.
The 8th Sunday after Pentecost
Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Good morning. It’s good to be back with you after a refreshing vacation. We had a week in Edisto Beach in South Carolina, and most of the rest of our vacation we spent in Tennessee, with a few days out in Georgia, where we had a wonderful visit with Fr. Tom and Martha Fitzgerald.
Pentecost III 2008
Fr. Joseph Scalisi
This gospel lesson is a bit scary, isn’t it…
“Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven”
However, Jesus words are not meant to produce fear and anxiety. After all, just last week we heard him say “do not be anxious”. Last week we heard him challenge us to think more about God and His righteousness, knowing that He can provide for our needs, rather than thinking only about ourselves and all the worry that goes along with trying to get what we want.
Pentecost II 2008
Fr. Fred Robinson
Dallas Willard, a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, wrote a book titled The Divine Conspiracy. In it he reports that “a pilot was practicing high speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent-and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.”
He goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
How do you know if you are hearing the voice of God? I think we have all asked that question before at one point or another. Or to put it another way, what does God want me to do…who does he want me to be…what does he want me to study…how does he want me to act…or who does he want me to marry. Sound more familiar?
Let me ask you a question. Why is there a Church of the Redeemer here on the corner of Palm and Ringling? Those who have been around here for awhile might tell me that the Church of the Redeemer didn’t start here on this corner, but that we have been in several locations in our history of over a hundred years. This is just the last location and we have been here since 1950. The first service was on a Friday night, the 17th of March, and the service was the Great Litany. The historians among us might also say that the founding father of this parish was John Hamilton Gillespie, who was the same John Hamilton Gillespie who was the first mayor of Sarasota. Gillespie certainly is part of the reason we are here today at the corner of Palm and Ringling, but he is not the most fundamental reason we are here. The reason the Church of the Redeemer is here on the corner of Palm and Ringling is that Jesus has risen from the dead. If his cold, dead body had not been resurrected on that first Easter morning, there would be no Church of the Redeemer.
Continue reading ‘Sermon - March 23, 2008 - Easter Sunday’ »
Sermon delivered at Church of the Redeemer
Palm Sunday 2008
Fr. Joseph Scalisi
What does the Palm branch mean? Why do we do this stuff anyway?
About 150 years before the birth of Christ, the Jewish people were occupied by a foreign power. Not by the Romans but by the Greeks. During this time, the Jews went through a period of terrible persecution in which the occupying power attempted to strip away their identity and remake the Jews so that they would look more like themselves. In order to do this, the Greeks assaulted the very heart of the Jewish people, their relationship with God.
A member of our parish gave me a tremendous gift a few weeks ago. The parishioner is a doctor and she told me that after she operated on my vocal chords I would have to be silent for two weeks. She discovered that I had a polyp on my vocal chords. In fact, she called it a hemorrhoidal polyp. I didn’t know one could have hemorrhoids on one’s vocal chords!
Continue reading ‘Sermon - February 24, 2008 - Lent III’ »
