St. Paul's Memorial Church - St. Paul's Memorial Church, Charlottesville, VA
Sermons from St. Paul's Memorial Church
10:00 AM Stewardship Sunday Sermon
The Stewardship Sunday Sermon preached at the 10:00 AM service.
8:00 AM Stewardship Sunday Sermon
The sermon preached on Stewardship Sunday at the 8:00 AM service.
A Rich Young Man
Today we have a gospel story we don’t think about very much. Oh, it’s familiar enough. It’s told in three of our gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—and we all learned it as children. But none of us takes it very seriously, especially not here in church. If we did take it seriously, it might have some rather negative implications for our stewardship campaign, and then Sue Rainey and Jeff Gleason and Jack Bocock wouldn’t like us any more. It’s much easier just to downplay the whole story.The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
We have a variety of options in all of our relationships. Practicing mercy, forgiveness and integrity within marriage and other relationships rather than to set limits to increase our own advantage is a way to practice the presence of God.
Tribalism
The great sin of our time is tribalism. Perhaps it began seventeen years ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Eastern Europe fragmented into a score of competing countries, and some of those—like Czechoslovakia—disintegrated into still smaller states. During the same period millions of Africans have been murdered in ongoing tribal conflicts, of which the one now occurring in Darfur is only the latest example. In Milan, many Italians want to break away from the rest of their country, some in Quebec are still trying to separate from Canada, and a few people in both Texas and Montana are dreaming of independence from the rest of us.Back Door People
A few years ago, a movie came out called, “Dirty Pretty Things.” The movie is set in London and tells the stories of two immigrants, Okwe, from Nigeria, and Sonjay, from Turkey. Okwe and Sonjay don’t have a lot in common, they are from different parts of the world, speak different languages, practice different religions. But in London, they have one big thing in common: They are undocumented. They have no status, no rights, no credentials.A War Against Evil
We like to think of ourselves as peaceful people, but you and I use war-like metaphors all the time. “She lost her long fight against disease” is a phrase we frequently encounter in obituaries. Sports writers say that rival football teams are “battling it out” for the championship. Our president uses the word “crusade” to characterize his “War on Terror.” And any of us who are teenagers, or who have teenagers of our own, occasionally use words derived from the battlefield to describe the generational conflicts going on inside our homes. War gives us the vocabulary we use to describe lots of our everyday experiences.Pentecost 14
Remembering 9/11 and reflecting on a God that calls us to be refreshment and hope to all.
Tradition
Last spring, First Year Players presented “Fiddler on the Roof.” Since a number of our Canterbury kids were in the production, I was particularly anxious to see their performance. They did a phenomenal job, and what made it even more impressive was that every one of the actors was a first-year student at the University.Pentecost 12
Looking at our ongoing response to need a year after Hurricane Katrina.
Getting in Touch
Church Office (434) 295-2156
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