Mount Calvary Sermons

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT 2016 ROMANS 13:11-14 Last year I installed new windows in my house. I felt I had no choice. On windy days the draft would not just move the curtains, but even force the light fittings to cling to the ceiling for dear life, fearing they would be ripped out of their nests. It was only a matter of time before Jim Cantore would be broadcasting from my living room for the Weather Channel. Upstairs an entire window frame had succumbed to mold, shedding large lumps of wood....

TWENTY-SIXTH AFTER PENTECOST 2016 PSALM 98 I made a trip to the Susquehanna this week. I was a man on a mission. I parked on the West Shore, and strode purposefully onto Market Street bridge and listened. Because I was all about listening. I stood many feet above the river, leant over the railings and turned my head sideways to the water to try to catch as many decibels I could. But the sound I was hoping to discern was drowned out by the traffic. So, I persevered, and continued my search...

ALL SAINTS’ SUNDAY 2016 LUKE 6:20-31 It was with great pleasure and immense relief that I opened an email this week from the Queen. I know that several of you also received it because you have told me. I eagerly opened it to read this majestic message: To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for your President, and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the...

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2013 LUKE 19:1-10 Sometimes he wished he were dead. That way he could escape the sneers of the people, that way he could avoid the judgmental looks, that way the pushing and shoving and jostling he endured on the street would come to a merciful end. It’s not easy being the object of derision, he reassured himself. Not everyone had his courage. Your average man could not cope with the hatred that you are called to suffer. Take Jacob down the street – the...

TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 18:9-14 Dear God. Thank you that I’m not like him over there. Lord, you have been so good to me. You made me a reasonable, thoughtful person. Thank you that I’m not one of those unthinking Christians –those Fundamentalists with their simplistic faith and their pre-Modern way of reading the Bible. Like him. Look at him, Lord. Such judgmental opinions, such arrogance, such pride in his own goodness. That’s the problem with his type of Christian,...

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 JEREMIAH 31:27-34 His name is Frano Salek, and he makes me smile. He is from Croatia, and he has a story to tell. So amazing is his story that you will possibly be shocked, and certainly moved. I predict you may even gasp by the end of it. It was in 1996 that Frano was driving along one of those twisty roads that snake around mountains when he encountered a United Nations truck, coming straight for him. He instinctively jerked the wheel to avoid...

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 17:11-19 That moment he put his foot into the bath of boiling water and watched it blister he knew he was in trouble. He remembered when he was a boy, touching a scolding pot and his mother shouting at him to run and put his hand in cold water. That did the trick forty years ago. This time there was nothing to relieve his dread, no ointment for his alarm, no balm for the horror. But it wasn’t the agony of the burn to his foot that now caused...

TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 PSALM 37:1-9 When I finally received the phone call I was devastated, angry, desolate. They were very, very grateful. Exceedingly grateful, and incredibly impressed. I was an amazing candidate. It’s just that I was not the most amazing. The other guy was even more suitable than me. They were convinced that God had a wonderful call for me somewhere, just not there. I’d been waiting a week for that call. Every time the phone rang my heart would jump into...

NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 16:19-31 The journey on the London Underground from my apartment to the office where I worked was only 20 minutes, but that morning it seemed like hours. Anxiety will do that to you. It grabs the minutes and expands them until they are unbearably eternal. In the evenings, on my way home, the clickety-clack of the wheels on the rails soothed me, rocked me gently towards, and even into, sleep. This morning, however, each clickety reminded me of the...

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 16:1-13 I didn’t know what a Virginian was, but I knew my grandmother had a crush on him. I must have been five or six and she was, well, she was old enough to know better. He was tall, dark and handsome, wore a black cowboy waistcoat, sported a black cowboy hat, rode a white cowboy horse, herded multicolored cowboy cows, loved a cowboy girl, and kept law and order on his cowboy ranch. I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. But my grandmother...

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2013 LUKE 15:1-10 It was a solemn day on the hillside. It always was when this tragedy played out, as it did this time every year. The sheep were now fully grown, no helpless lambs for the predators to pick off at will. The year was ageing, leaving the wolves with less easy pickings. The carnivores grew more brazen in their hunting, more obsessed in their staring at the sheep from the margins. A moment’s carelessness by a member of the flock could be fatal...

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 14:1, 7-14 This morning I’m feeling loved. It’s been a gratifying week. The reason for my burgeoning self-esteem and my blossoming self-respect is that I’ve received several invitations in the mail. It seems people are really interested in me. Legions want the pleasure of my company. They all seem to truly accept me and value me for who I am. I’ve brought a couple of these invitations this morning so you can share my joy. Here’s one reassuring me...

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 13:10-17 Eighteen years. 216 new moons, 216 full ones. 940 Sabbaths. 940 walks of indignity; hobbling, shuffling to the synagogue to do her Sabbath duty, to worship the God of her ancestors, to thank the Rock of her meagre life, to beg for the mercy of Yahweh. The Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, she repeated to herself, was gracious. The God of Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, she tried to convince herself, would look with compassion on her. Yahweh,...

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 HEBREWS 11:29-12:2 So, this morning I’m feeling pretty patriotic thanks to the performance of Team GB at the Olympics. You see, they are top of the medals table. No, not that medals table – the one that records, you know, medals, I mean the humility medals table, the near-miss medals table, the ‘it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part’ medals table. I’m talking about the table that records the number of fourth place finishes a nation achieves. This...

TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 12:32-40 The cruise from Westminster Pier on the River Thames to the Tower of London only took half an hour, but the effects on me have lasted a lifetime. I must have been ten at the time of that school field trip. Although I lived only 30 miles from the capital, I had never been to the Tower. But I’d listened to my history teachers, I’d heard the stories of traitors and tortures, betrayals and beheadings, mayhem and murder. I looked over the side of...

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LK 11:1-13 I have a new best friend. I say, ‘new’, but actually they have been a close and intimate companion for quite some time now. They are the first place I turn when I need something, and they rarely let me down. Like any best friend, sometimes they surprise me, occasionally they frustrate me, but usually they give me the warm glow that comes from knowing I have profited from their presence in my life. It’s Amazon Marketplace. Maybe it’s the Scottish...

NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 Luke 10:38-42 I know it’s happened to you, because it happens to me to me frequently. You are in a meeting, and the subject matter is less than riveting and your mind wanders to something much more interesting, and you don’t hear another thing. Now just let me say that this never happens to me in meetings in Mt Calvary, not even vestry meetings. But it does happen to me in local meetings of clergy. There’s that blood-curdling moment when my thoughts are a...

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2013 LUKE 9:51-62 I really wanted a rug. A nice sandy-colored, modestly patterned, home-spun rug, the kind that adorned the camel I had ridden the previous day. But as I stood in the Tunisian marketplace my heart sank. There were so many to choose from, and so many vendors, each with pound signs in their eyes. They saw this out-of-his-depth British tourist nervously surveying their stalls, and assumed I was overwhelmed by the prospect of haggling over a rug. And...

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2016 LUKE 7:36-8:3 There’s something about eating with people that opens up a world of beautiful things. It’s no coincidence that when Jesus had his most intimate heart-to-heart conversation with his friends, he chose a meal as the setting. And it’s no coincidence that in our Anglican tradition our worship is centered on a meal – the reenactment of that ancient supper. At dinner people lower their defenses, they let others glimpse their hearts. They let their...

She teetered her way into the corner of my eye, juggling armfuls of luggage, flapping her summer dress, and rustling a sandwich. She apologized for nudging my leg with a small bag, which she was trying to push under the seat with her foot. I assured her it was nothing, and she sat down, letting out a sigh of relief the way flustered shoppers do on commercials for tea, as they arrive home and sink into an armchair with a cuppa in their hands. It was last Tuesday, and we were on board the...