“I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you…” (1 Cor. 11:23).

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Maundy Thursday is the entry point to the sacred Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, the holy days that draw us toward the celebration of the resurrection on Easter Day. It has two main themes: the institution of the Lord’s Supper, emphasized in the reading from First Corinthians, and the obligation of humility, emphasized in the Gospel of John, where the call to humility is exemplified in the washing of feet as a sign-act illustrating the new commandment that we love one another.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This commandment becomes a core teaching and central aspect of the identity of the early Christian community, and it is illustrated in the practice of foot-washing, which is attested in many places, though not uniformly observed. And, of course, it is a sign of what is supposed to be universally observed, which is not the washing of feet, but the love that Christians are to have for one another. This love for one another fulfills Christ's new commandment. And in doing so, it draws us deeper into the great commandment itself: to love God and our neighbors.

This teaching has to be passed on, and it is a teaching that can only be passed on through a combination of both teaching and instruction in a historical sense, hence the reading of Scripture and the significance of preaching, but it is also a core aspect of identity that has to be lived out through action. The washing of feet is an illustration. But if all we do is wash feet as a liturgical act, and it does not touch our daily lives, and we do not actually live out the new commandment that Christ gave, then it is not serving its purpose.

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,” Paul writes before recounting the institution of the Lord’s Supper and summarizing its significance (1 Cor. 11:23). This line is, and should be, significant for all Christians, because what are we called to, if not to hand on to others what we have received from the Lord? To share with others the forgiveness that we have experienced in Jesus, to share with others the love that we have known in Christ, to share with others the knowledge of God’s love enfleshed in Jesus.

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you…”

We are, all of us, as Christians, called to preach the gospel with words and with actions, to share the good news, to be able to give a reason for the joy that is within us, and to imitate our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in our manner of life and way of being.

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you…”

This sentiment should be especially compelling and significant for the ordained. James reminds us in his letter that not many should seek to be teachers, for they will be judged more strictly (cf. James 3:1). James’s warning reminds us of the gravity of this calling. Those whom God calls to teach are charged with handing on what they have received with particular faithfulness — an exemplification of the way all Christians ought to pass on the love received in Jesus, the salvation found in Christ, and the good news of God’s mighty acts, which we recount this week and on Sunday.

But the ordained have a particular calling. For the deacon, the emphasis is on embodying the new commandment to love through service. This emphasis is then carried into the work and life of a priest, who, in our tradition, is first ordained as a deacon and then as a presbyter. To this life of service—which exemplifies adherence to the new commandment by serving others in a loving and faithful way—is added the distinctive characteristic of the priesthood as elder: the guardianship and stewardship of the tradition. This responsibility is both sacramental, which is why we reserve the administration of the Eucharist to priests and bishops, and instructional, as it is the responsibility of the priest, the presbyter of the community, to form Christians in the faith day-to-day and week-to-week.

This role is once again intensified in the life and work of a bishop, for whom guardianship takes a more central place as part of oversight, and the authority to teach and interpret Scripture within the community, and for its well-being, is a particular task to which the bishop is called.

So again, we should all be able to say, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you.” We should all be able to say that and look at our lives as Christians, seeing the ways in which we have handed on to others what we have received from the Lord. This is a communal responsibility, and Maundy Thursday reminds us of just how much we have received from Christ, and gives us the opportunity to be reminded through Scripture readings, through the act of washing of feet, where that is observed, what it means to be a follower of Christ and a servant of our fellow human beings and children of God.

Today, I encourage you to consider the commandment that Christ gave, the new commandment: “that you love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Just as Christ has loved us, we should love one another.

Have we handed on to others the love we received in Jesus? Have we offered others the acceptance that we found in Christ? Have we, through our life, example, faith, and daily dealings, handed on all the good we’ve received in Christ?

This is something for us to examine. But I would suggest, brothers and sisters, that if this were not at all the case, none of us would be here. If this were not at all the case, if there had not been people faithfully handing these things on to us, and if we had not handed these things on to others, there would be no community that would gather at a Maundy Thursday service or tomorrow’s Good Friday observance.

If no one had handed on what they received, then there would be no celebration of the Easter service on Sunday. But, not to spoil anything—there will be.

So yes, we are called to be more faithful, more diligent—but we will never do that if we neglect the evidence of Christ’s work that has already borne fruit in our lives. We should give thanks for it. For the people who have handed this faith on to us. Think for a moment: Who has shown you the love of God? Remember them. Give thanks for them. When you receive communion today, or at other times, consider that discerning the body, recognizing the presence of Christ, also means recognizing the other members of Christ’s body, the very people that we come to the table with, and those who’ve made it possible for us to gather round the altar, whether they are physically present or not.

For what we have received from the Lord, we also hand on: in bread and wine, in the foot-washing, in kindness and love offered to fellow Christians, to neighbors, even to enemies. This is what it means to follow Jesus tonight, tomorrow, and always. Amen.

Recently, I was asked to select a reading from the tradition for an Evensong service, and I had the opportunity to share it as part of the liturgy. My Latin has always been fairly elementary, and through lack of use, it has become even more rudimentary. Even so, I find myself returning to it from time to time, if only for the quiet discipline of working slowly through a text.

For this occasion, I selected a portion of Augustine of Hippo’s On Catechizing the Uninstructed (Chapter 4.8). Ever since I first encountered this passage, I have been struck by its central image: Christ, the humble God. It is an image that holds together what we naturally seek to separate. Rather than something abstract or distant, God’s love is embodied, enacted, and offered to us collectively and to each of us individually.

In Christ, that love is enfleshed. He moves into the center of our human world, accompanies us, and in the end bears the full weight of our alienation from God and one another. In that climactic moment, what appears to be defeat is revealed as the very means of our salvation and reconciliation: a pathway opened, here and now, and carried forward into the fullness of God’s future, which is now also our future.

I do not know a more fitting image as we enter Holy Week than this—Christ’s humility and love intertwined.

What follows is my own translation of that passage, offered not as an expert rendering, but as an act of attention and gratitude. It is, perhaps, a small way of listening again to a voice that continues to speak with clarity into the life of the Church.

May the love of God, made known in Christ, be revealed to us all in new and deepening ways this Holy Week.

Translation:

Therefore, if Christ came especially for this: that humanity might know how much God loves them, and that, knowing this, they might be set ablaze in love for the One by whom they were first loved, and might love their neighbor as Christ commands and demonstrates—he who, by loving not one who was near but one far off and wandering, became neighbor himself—then all holy Scripture written beforehand announced the coming of the Lord, and whatever has since been written with divine authority proclaims Christ and urges love. It is clear that the whole Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments: the love of God and the love of neighbor; and not only these, but whatever has been written later for our good likewise proclaims Christ and exhorts love.

For, in the Old Testament, the New is hid; in the New Testament, the Old is revealed. According to that hiddenness, those who understand only in a fleshly way are subject to punishing fear. According to this revelation, the spiritual—those who knocked in humility then, and had even what was hidden opened to them, and those now who do not seek in pride, lest even what is open be closed—understanding spiritually, are set free by the gift of love.

For nothing is more opposed to love than envy, and the root of envy is pride. Therefore, the same Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, is both the sign of God’s love for us and the example of human humility among us, so that our great swelling might be healed by a greater and contrary remedy.

For great is the misery of the proud, but greater still the mercy of the humble God.

Therefore, with this love set before you as your end, to which you refer everything you say, whatever you proclaim, speak it in such a way that the one who hears you may, in hearing, believe; in believing, hope; and in hoping, love.1

A few thoughts regarding some parts of the translation. I nearly used a few compound words to try to get at some sense of the Latin that English doesn’t convey well in one word, or because translation loses the word-play. In the sentence “Si ergo maxime propterea Christus advenit, ut cognosceret homo quantum eum diligat Deus” rather than “loves” I considered using the term “lovingly regards” so that it would be “so that humanity might know how much God lovingly regards them.”

The most obvious question was whether to stick with “man” for the translation of homo. Given the context where I will be reading this, I opted to go for humanity and use a singular they (I know, I know). I considered “person” but thought it brought too much theological baggage related to God (divine persons, etc.) as well as humankind or human being. In the end, I thought humanity preserved some simplicity.

For the phrase “For great is the misery of the proud [man/human], but greater still the mercy of the humble God.” in Latin “Magna est enim miseria, superbus homo: sed major misericordia, humilis Deus” there’s wordplay between misery (miseria) and mercy (misericorda). Misery and mercy in English aren’t etymologically related, as mercy comes from the Anglo-Norman merci, deriving from classical Latin’s fee, wages, or price, and in post-classical Latin, “gift” (which may be why it takes on its current meaning and comes to translate misericordia). Despite that, they have a similar sound in English, and I thought that was better than trying to use some sort of compound words to hammer home a relationship that I think readers/listeners can get to just fine without the explicit wordplay. I considered “seeking-misery” and “loving-mercy” but thought they clouded more than they revealed.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

To view the service, check out Trinity’s YouTube channel.

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

It is football season in the South, and it’s a good year for fans of college football in Tennessee—two top-25 ranked teams, Vanderbilt and Tennessee. Vanderbilt beat LSU yesterday, and some people have already celebrated that this morning. Regardless of what happened between Tennessee and Alabama, Tennessee will probably remain a ranked team.

Even though I played football throughout my childhood, I don’t have a team I root for. I like to watch because I enjoy the strategy. My university didn’t have a football team, but when I went to Sewanee—the University of the South and the School of Theology—it didn’t take long for me to hear a story many of you may know: the story of the 1899 Sewanee Tigers, known as the Iron Men.

Sewanee was one of the founding institutions of the predecessor to the Southeastern Conference, and that 1899 football team was famous for a ten-day journey in which they defeated five teams in six days, all by shutout. They beat Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, Ole Miss, and LSU—and as the story goes, they rested on the seventh day.

It’s been a long time since Sewanee could say anything like that against teams of that size, but back then, the playing field was more even. One of the players on that team was William Sterling Claiborne, who later became Archdeacon of East Tennessee and was instrumental in overseeing and supporting various mission churches—seventeen of them by 1930—supported by what was then Otey Parish, now St. Mark and St. Paul. Many of those congregations still exist in the Sewanee area. He was very much an exemplar of that late-19th- and early-20th-century movement known as muscular Christianity, which also gave us the YMCA and YWCA.

The team was called the Iron Men because they played both offense and defense. They didn’t substitute players. That’s something rarely seen today—usually only when a team has too many injuries to field a full squad or when they’re playing a stronger opponent and want to give themselves a chance by using their best athletes on both sides of the ball. It’s a gamble: can you do enough before you wear out?

You can probably think of times in your life when, if life were a game of football, you felt like you were playing on both offense and defense, with no subs, and maybe even that the refs were out to get you. Imagine then if the referee were not just inept but actually out to get you—odds stacked against you, weary and worn out. In that kind of situation, what a relief it would be to hear another phrase sometimes used about players on a team: “They were all over the field.”

Someone who’s everywhere at once, doing everything.

The hope for us is that God is all over the field in our lives when we face difficulties. And that, I believe, is the message of the parable Jesus tells today.

The Parable of the Widow and the Judge

Luke sets it up for us: Jesus told his disciples a parable “about the need to pray always and not lose heart.” Yet this parable about prayer contains two striking absences. We never hear that the widow prays, and the only reference to God is an unjust judge who “does not fear God.”

So why does Jesus tell us this story about a poor widow under such strain? She’s speaking for herself in the courts—going to the gate of the city. This indicates she has no male relative to stand for her, no brother, son, or nephew. It’s even possible the person she’s seeking justice against is a male relative. She has no advocate, so she goes to the only place she can—the judge—and she goes again and again.

She goes, and he denies her. She goes again, and he denies her.

We know from the start that this is an unjust judge, because he neither fears God nor respects people. That description alone would have told Jesus’ audience that he was a bad judge. In Scripture, the two essential qualifications for a good judge are precisely those: to fear God and to care for people.

Justice, in the biblical sense, requires attention to particular cases and circumstances. There’s even a term from Greek philosophy for this: epieikeia—reasonableness or fittingness. True justice can’t be achieved by applying laws abstractly; it must take account of real people and real situations.

This judge fails completely. Yet the widow persists. She continues to seek what is rightfully hers until she wears him down. Eventually, he relents—not because he’s just, but because she’s relentless.

As Jesus says, the unjust judge relents—she wears him down. In the end, he’s afraid she might come and “give him a black eye.” That’s the literal reading, and just as in English, it has a double meaning. It could mean he’s literally afraid she’ll strike him, or more likely that she’ll damage his reputation. The one thing he cares about—himself—is now at risk because of her persistence, and that’s what finally moves him.

Where God Is Found

Where is God in all this? And where is prayer?

Prayer is found first in the widow’s persistence—the energy and determination that keep her from losing heart. Prayer empowers us in the face of daunting odds. And prayer is not something we generate on our own. It is something God does in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. God inspires prayer—literally breathes it in us. Prayer sustains and directs us, keeps us from despairing, and enables us to do what needs to be done.

Prayer is also present in the parable through the widow’s actions. St. Bonaventure, the medieval theologian, wrote that to “pray always” means prayer of desire in the heart, prayer of petition on the lips, and prayer of disposition in our work and actions. The widow’s desire for justice is prayer in her heart; her appeal to the judge is prayer on her lips; and her persistence in returning again and again is prayer in her actions.

So prayer is there, and God is there.

Sometimes people read this story and wonder where God is in it, but Jesus himself is the one telling the parable—God in the flesh. He sees the plight of people like this widow. He uses her story as an example of faithfulness and persistence. “Look at this widow’s faithfulness,” he’s saying. “She acts despite the odds. You must pray like this if you are not to lose heart.”

This parable comes in response to the disciples’ question about when the Son of Man will come. Jesus’ answer is clear: if you are going to follow me, be faithful. Trust that God is far better than this unjust judge.

It’s what theologians call an argument from lesser to greater: if even the unjust judge eventually relents, how much more will God, who loves us, give what we need?

God is present in the telling of the parable, in the inspiration of the widow’s persistence, and as the ultimate judge who will set things right. While the unjust judge may not fear God, everyone hearing Jesus’ words would know that God will set things right. The Son of Man will return; the question is not if, but when.

And Jesus’ final question lingers: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Will there be people like this persistent widow—faithful, enduring, acting for what is right?

Jesus promises that when God acts on behalf of God’s people, it will happen swiftly. It may appear that nothing is happening, and then suddenly, God’s justice breaks in. Some translations say “quickly,” but others render it “swiftly” or “suddenly”—a reminder that God’s action may seem delayed and then come all at once.

There is hope for the future, yes—but justice also comes through the persistence of God’s people: thousands of widows seeking justice, thousands more who witness their persistence and join them, who refuse to let the unjust rest. Their faithfulness becomes the instrument of God’s justice.

Faith That Persists

In the end, God is all over the field—in our actions, in our prayers, in our endurance, and in our hope.

So what does this mean for us today? For Trinity Church?

You are in a process of transition. Many of you will be called to new things, to new ministries, to take on new responsibilities. You’ll be doing unfamiliar tasks or engaging familiar ones with renewed purpose. In all of it, prayer must remain central—in your heart through desire, on your lips through petition, and in your work through faithful action.

When Christ returns and asks, “Will I find faith on the earth?”—I trust and believe he will find it here at Trinity. Today, next week, and in the years to come, you will be a faithful people empowered by God.

When we pursue justice, when we act faithfully and prayerfully, we are never alone—because God is all over our lives, and all over the field.

Amen.

Scripture: Acts 9:36-43; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30

It is good to be with you all here this morning on Good Shepherd Sunday, to be able to reflect on what it means to call Christ the Good Shepherd. I would submit to you, as we begin this reflection, that it means far more than we often consider. That we call Christ the Good Shepherd—that we call Christ the Lord—these titles are bound up together. In fact, Messiah, Lord, Good Shepherd—they all flow into one another. Each of our readings, in their own way, reflects some aspect or lens through which we can come to understand who Jesus is, and who we are because of who Jesus is.

When we look at Acts, we see a witness to what the disciple is to be and how a disciple is to act. When we look to the Gospel of John, we see what Jesus’s Messiahship entails. And when we look to Revelation, we see Jesus’s identity presented clearly and repeatedly through powerful imagery. In all three texts, we find a testimony to the hope that is ours through faith in Christ.

Years ago—more years than I care to count—I was an undergraduate and heard a lecture by Dr. Michael Budde entitled Jesus on the Job: The Corporate Exploitation of Religion.1 His thesis was an interesting one. He argued that advertising companies and others actually benefit from our "post-Christendom" culture: the general disaffiliation of people from the Church. We are far enough removed from the Church that most people no longer have deep formation in it, yet close enough that religious language and imagery still hold resonance.

And here was the key insight: people are familiar enough with the imagery to find it meaningful, but not formed enough in the faith to recognize blasphemy when they see it. So the culture is ripe for the misapplication of Christian imagery, faith language, and symbolism. This matters because many of us, even within the Church, unknowingly absorb these misuses of faith. We may mistake charisma for authority or equate moralism with the Gospel.

Now, Budde was naming something about our culture, but I think what he was really pointing to is a misuse of faith and of God that has always been present, across times and places. Here’s what I mean: whether we're talking about spiritual leaders, political leaders, family leaders, or institutional authorities, there are always people who will presume for themselves the kind of loyalty, authority, and status that rightly belongs only to God.

So I want to lift up two phrases from our readings today—two that I hope you’ll carry with you. First, from Revelation: "Salvation belongs to our God” (Revelation 7:10). And second, from the Gospel: "No one can take them from my hand” (John 10:28). These two declarations—That God alone is Savior, and Jesus never loses what the Father has given him—give us the foundation for understanding faithful leadership and discipleship.

These declarations guide us as we consider leadership in all its forms—spiritual, political, and familial. In each of these situations, people should not present themselves in such a way that they have somehow presumed the place of God. In other words, they should not be saying something that sounds like, “I am your salvation. I am the one that you should listen to.”

Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people with authority. Obviously, Scripture tells us we should show respect to our parents and to those in positions of leadership. But here’s the key: if someone is standing in my position and they say something like, “Trust me; I know what’s best,” and they’re not pointing you to Jesus, they’re aggrandizing themselves. They’re lifting themselves up.

If someone is standing in another place of authority and they’re saying you should give them the sort of obedience that belongs rightly only to God, or if they’re saying that their ideology or their perspective is where you’re going to find salvation—in other words, if anyone in any place is telling you that your salvation depends upon obedience to them rather than faithful obedience to God—they’re misleading you. That’s not the voice of a shepherd, but of someone attempting to take the Shepherd’s place.

We are given the gift of discernment to recognize the difference between good shepherds and false ones. Scripture teaches us this. In the Old Testament, “shepherd” is often royal language—kings were meant to be shepherds of the people. Later, this image extends to prophets and priests. But predominantly, “shepherd” means “king.” What’s fascinating in the New Testament is that this kingly image is redefined. The King is also the Servant. The Shepherd is the one who lays down his life.

Christian leadership—whether in the Church or outside of it—must take the form of service. Those who would lead must love. We are called, in every part of our lives, to identify with and imitate Jesus.

We see this in Acts, where Peter visits the grieving community after the death of Tabitha, a beloved disciple. There’s no indication that they expected him to raise her. They just hoped he would come and comfort them. This was a pastoral call. But Peter, imitating Christ, goes into the room and, in a scene that closely echoes Jesus’s raising of Jairus’s daughter, he tells her to arise. In Acts, we're told that Peter says, "Tabitha, get up” (Acts 9:40)—words that closely echo Jesus’s command in Luke: "Talitha koum” (Luke 8:54) ("Little girl, get up"). The resonance is not accidental. “Tabitha, get up…” Tabitha koum. Do you hear it? Tabitha, Talitha? Luke, the author of both accounts, invites us to hear Peter’s ministry as an echo of Christ’s own—right down to the syllables.

This is what it means to follow Jesus: to imitate him. And through that imitation, wonders can happen—not because of our power, but through God’s. People ought to be able to tell where we are taking our direction—from whom we are receiving our voice and values.

In John’s Gospel, we see another dynamic of Messiahship. Jesus is confronted at Solomon’s Portico and asked plainly, “Are you the Messiah?” And he essentially says, “I’ve already told you—but you cannot believe because you are not of my sheep.” It’s a matter not of clarity, but of recognition. For John, faith is not first about intellectual assent; it’s about following. Faith leads to understanding, not the other way around.

Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me (John 10:27).” To follow Jesus is to live like him, to walk his path. Think of John 14:6: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Jesus is not just the truth to be believed; he is the way to be walked. Discipleship is about behavior as well as belief.

When people say the Jews of Jesus’s day were expecting a “political” Messiah, they are partly right—but what they mean is a military leader who would overthrow Rome. Jesus is political, but in a radically different way. He fulfills the vision of Isaiah 11, where the Messiah from Jesse’s line will judge not by what he sees or hears, but with righteousness and equity: "He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth (Isaiah 11:3–4)."

The hope of Isaiah—and of the entire prophetic tradition—is that God himself will shepherd his people. God will not abandon us to merely human rulers. The critiques of bad shepherds in the prophets all build toward this climax: God will be the Shepherd. And in Jesus, God is the Shepherd. The Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd brings the flock together—a great multitude as we see in Revelation. The shepherds condemned by Scripture are precisely those leaders who seek to bolster their own authority by dividing people and alienating us from one another. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, operates differently, and so should we.

Revelation brings this into sharp relief with its layered imagery: God on the throne. Then the Lamb, the Shepherd, at the center of the throne. One throne. One God. And Jesus—fully God—is the Shepherd who saves. He is priest, sacrifice, and Savior.

And so, the message for us today is this: if our leaders lead with humility, if we ourselves act in ways consistent with the behavior of Jesus, we are on the right path. But when someone demands a kind of obedience or allegiance that places themselves at the center, that divides people while aggrandizing themselves, that should be a red flag.

Salvation belongs to our God (Revelation 7:10). That is both a word of warning and a word of hope. Because salvation belongs to God in Christ, it has been given to you and to me. And as Jesus says: "No one can snatch them out of my hand." No one can take us from him.

Amen.

Additions to Esther (Apocrypha) 14:1-14

Psalm 138

Matthew 7:7-12

In the name of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

I've been thinking a lot recently, about love of neighbor, and about love of enemy. As one commentator put it, the two are often the same. Love of enemy, is actually an expansion and commentary on love of neighbor. And in looking at our Gospel texts today, Jesus here is making a traditional argument from lesser to greater: if you who are evil, if you who are imperfect, if you who are sinful, desire good things for your children then how much more will the good Lord, how much more does God, how much more will God, deliver good things to God's children?

And then we come to this golden rule. Jesus' summary of ethical teaching: in everything, do to others, as you would have them do to you, for this is the law and the prophets. So of course, this is Jesus summing up his own summary of the law, to love God and to love one's neighbor. And then now he's summing it up, again, an even shorter, more concise way to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And I would argue that that positive statement also includes within itself, the negative portion, or the corollary of that, which is, do not do to others that which you would not want done to you.

I think we're living in a time right now, where we look around the world, there are a lot of things happening--There's a lot of cruelty being exhibited. There's a lot of inhumanity and plain evil being visited upon others by people. And in this time, it seems that we all need to be reminded of both aspects of each of these things: that love of neighbor includes love of enemies, and that doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, also implies not doing the other foot we would not want done to ourselves. Jesus empowers us, I believe, to become able to keep these teachings. Sometimes I think our preaching can slip into a sort of moralism that says, go forth and do these things that are righteous, you who are righteous. And yet it is only through Christ, that we're righteous and it's only through Christ, that we're able to do these things. And I know in myself, the times where I have felt myself stretched to love another. I pray that we would be a people that is open to that sort of stretching, and is open to following Christ. And that we would challenge one another and our leaders to be stretched in loving others. Amen.

Remember that my sermons tend to vary somewhat between services, both because I try to keep the 8 AM sermon slightly shorter, and because I preach without a manuscript.

The 10:30 AM service is above. The sequence hymn and gospel reading are included. To go directly to the sermon, start at 3:18.

The 8 AM Service is below. The gospel reading is included. To go directly to the sermon, start at 1:23.

Image Info: Carving of Three Faces with four eyes, Llandaff Cathedral

Image Info: Christ the Judged, Byzantine

Image: Procession of Virgin Martyrs, c. 6th Century.