St. Paul's Memorial Church - St. Paul's Memorial Church, Charlottesville, VA
Sermons from St. Paul's Memorial Church
Epiphany
The words Servant, Grace and Power are descriptive of Christian ministry that is centered in Christ..
Joseph, the First Christian
Sarah Nalls is my new hero. Her Christmas pageant last Sunday came off beautifully—the baby in Mary’s lap never whimpered, the shepherds and the Wise Men marched forward right on cue, the angels and the lambs looked adorable (the black sheep were my favorites), and those narrators . . . . I’ve been accused of having an overpowering voice, but mine is a mere squeak compared with theirs. Nothing—at least as far as I could see—went wrong last Sunday. But it is not always so.Advent II
"Tis the season to be jolly!"...that's the message out there in these December days and there's no getting away from it. The numbing repetition of Christmas music in stores, on the radio and even in outdoor spaces. Front yards alive with inflatable reindeer, snowmen, candy canes and, tucked in among them, the Virgin Mary. Television channels frontload their programming with saccharine melodramas and you can be certain before the final commercial airs, someone is going to learn the true meaning of Christmas...which is curious since Jesus will never be mentioned and the dramatic focal point will be either the return of a long missing relative or the health of the family pet. For kids and their parents the days become a hectic blur of concerts, recitals, school performances and parties.Taming God
I grew up with a wonderful dog named "Buffer," a mix of collie, cocker spaniel, and who knows how many other breeds. Precisely at three every weekday afternoon, Buffer would settle himself at the end of our driveway, waiting for me to come home from school. When he saw me rounding the corner, he would jump up and race the length of our street to greet me. Even if everything else in my life was going wrong, at least I knew that my dog loved me. Buffer helped get me through adolescence.Lacking Imagination
Back in the middle sixties, before I even thought of going to seminary, I trained to be a professional anthropologist. One summer, as part of that training, I did research in a small Colombian village called “Felidia,” located high in the Andes overlooking the city of Cali. This was before the days of the Cali Cartel—today no American could go there safely. The villagers welcomed me, for in those days the United States was still popular among Latin Americans, partly because they all venerated the memory of the recently assassinated John F. Kennedy. A knot of small children followed me everywhere I went. I mean everywhere—they even crowded around me whenever I tried to take a shower. “Nubes,” they called me, Spanish for “Clouds,” because—they said of me—“he’s so tall his head is in the clouds.” And they peppered me with non-stop questions about “Gringolandia,” their playful name for the United States, “Land of the Gringos.”Pentecost 21
How do we understand Scripture to be the authoritative Word of God? And how does our understanding lead to faith?
Religious Lanuage
The Ninety-first Psalm is my favorite in the whole Psalter. I often pray its lines over someone who is dying: "Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, there shall no evil happen to you, neither shall any plague come nigh your dwelling, for he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways." Now there's something strange going on here. The person in the bed is dying, and I'm saying, "Neither shall any plague come nigh your dwelling." Either I'm crazy, or I'm using a different kind of language than the one we use everyday. I believe it's the latter.The Lost Sheep
“Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.” “Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.” “Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep, she doesn’t know where to find them. Leave them alone, and they’ll come home, dragging their tails behind them.”Getting in Touch
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