Sermon by The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The 9th Sunday after Pentecost

The Pelican, Volume 15, Number 01 - August 2010 (2,198 KB)

Sermon preached by The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Some of you prepare for our worship together on Sunday mornings by reading the lessons appointed for the day ahead of time. If you do that, you realize that we are in the time of the year when we are reading the Gospel according to St. Luke in sequence. Thus, last week we read from Chapter 10 the story of Mary and Martha. Today we picked up where we left off, with the beginning of Chapter 11, where Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. One of the things I love about the lectionary is that if you never open a Bible at home—which I don’t recommend, by the way—if you come to church every Sunday and every major holy day, you are going to hear most all of the New Testament and a good deal of the Old Testament.

As was his custom, Jesus had been praying. His disciples were aware of that fact, and when he finished praying, they asked him to teach them to pray. That was the occasion when he gave them what has become known as the Lord’s Prayer. St. Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, as you probably noticed, is a little different from St. Matthew’s, which is the one that is better known. Today I will just deal with St. Luke’s version.

The disciples’ request, “Teach us to pray,” is a request commonly heard by priests and pastors today, as it must have been in every generation. It is asked in a variety of ways: What is prayer? Why should I pray? What is the best way to pray? Continue reading ‘Sermon - 25 July 2010’ »

Sermon by The Rev. Lance Wallace
8th Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon Preached by The Rev. Lance Wallace

According to the dictionary a hero is a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for brave deeds and noble qualities. We admire heroes. We want to be like them. Typically movies are around heroic figures that through some act of bravery and self-sacrifice save the day or the city or the country, or the world. Or they may overcome some big obstacle and achieve something great.

Frequently we think of soldiers, or policeman, or fireman as heroes for bravery and for self-sacrifice. Sometimes we think of people like Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King as heroes because they stood for noble causes and were martyred for those causes. In the Bible there are different types of heroes and we learn of one in today’s reading from Genesis.

The Genesis reading tells the story of the occasion when the Lord visits Abraham and Sarah at the Oaks of Mamre to tell them that in about a year Sarah will have a child. That’s pretty exciting news! What is Sarah’s response to this announcement? Did she drop down to her knees in gratitude and thanksgiving? Does she begin to weep with joy? No, Sarah laughed. Continue reading ‘Sermon - 18 July 2010’ »

Children’s Homily

Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The 7th Sunday after Pentecost

We love the Parable of the Good Samaritan, don’t we? For most everyone here, it is a parable we could tell from memory, unlike so much of the rest of the Bible for most Christians. We can barely utter the word Samaritan without adding the word good. Because of this parable, the two are synonymous.

Yet, the people who first heard this parable would not have liked it at all. No doubt, some who heard it might even have thought, “Jesus, I would have liked you a whole lot better if you hadn’t told that story!”

You see, Samaritans and Jews were mortal enemies. In our own Civil War times, it would have been as if Jesus had told the Parable of the Good Yankee, if he was in the South, or the Parable of the Good Rebel, if he was in the North. Or in our own day, it might be the Parable of the Good Muslim Terrorist. Why couldn’t he tell a nice story, with the good neighbor being someone we want to like, rather than someone we want to hate? Continue reading ‘Sermon - 11 July 2010’ »

Sermon by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

What did we say at the end of the Gospel? Praise to you, Lord Christ? Did you really mean that? Did you really hear what the Gospel was saying? What we heard in the Gospel appointed for today is what I call some of the hard sayings of Jesus.

Where is the tender Christ who suffers little children to come to him? The comforting Christ who gives hope to the poor? The Christ who cares more for the one lost lamb than the 99 safe in the fold? Where is the Jesus who cries when he hears the news that his good friend Lazarus is dead? These are the images that come to mind when we think of our Lord and our relationship with him. Continue reading ‘Sermon - 27 June 2010’ »

Sermon preached by The Rev. Richard Lampert
Pentecost 4
Father’s Day