Sermons from St. Martin-in-the-Fields

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel gives us some modern saints from this past week to look to for guidance as we consider the Transfiguration readings for the Last Sunday after Epiphany and our entry into Lent.

The Rev. Barbara Ballenger preaches on texts for the Feast of Absalom Jones, on this Sunday following his feast day of February 13. Absalom Jones was the first Black priest ordained in the Episcopal Church, but in our remembering of him, we should not dis-member him. Listen in to Rev. Ballenger's sermon to understand more.

The Rev. Anne Thatcher offers the sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, focusing on the Gospel of Matthew 5:13-20.

The Rev. Canon Arlette Benoit Joseph offers the sermon at Evensong for the Feast of the Presentation, focusing on the Gospel from Luke 2:22-40. She talks about those things we wait for, and whether we have eyes to see them when we've been waiting a long time.

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel offers the sermon on the Feast of the Presentation, focusing on the Gospel from Luke 2:22-40.

The Rev. Barbara Ballenger offers the sermon on the Feast of the Ordination of Florence Li Tim-Oi, focusing on the Gospel from Luke 10:1-9.

Peter, partiality, and peace. The Rev. Anne Thatcher talks about these three p's and our faith in her sermon, focusing on the reading from Acts, on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, The Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord.

Will Platnick was our guest preacher this morning taking on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Lectionary readings include Matthew 2:13-18. Will is pictured here with his wife, the Rev. Becca Ehrlich, who also presided for the Holy Eucharist this morning.

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel's sermon from Christmas Eve at 10:00 p.m. based on the Lectionary readings of the day for Christmas I, including Luke 2:1-20.

"A desert full of flowers is not a miracle. Flowers bloom in the desert every time it rains. Which is not often, to be sure, but it does happen, especially in the spring time. That's because deserts are full of seeds and bulbs and stream beds and dry ponds and, they wait. They wait for long stretches for water to bring them to root, and to bloom - to make them spectacularly what they are." - The Rev. Barbara Ballenger


The Rev. Barbara Ballenger delivers this sermon on her first Sunday as an ordained priest from the readings of the day, the third Sunday of Advent.

The Rev. Emily Richards, rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Glenside, PA delivers the sermon at the Ordination to the Priesthood of the Revs. Barbara Ballenger and Laura Palmer. She focuses especially on the responses in scripture to the phrase, "Here am I," repeated only a few times in scripture, including both in Isaiah and in the words of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Readings for the day include:
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 132
Philippians 4:4-9
John 10:11-18

Sermon by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel for the Second Sunday of Advent.

Text in image:
"Paul writes a verse that I think is a good one to memorize, "Welcome each other as you were welcomed by Christ." Meaning, we were welcomed without regard to status or achievement...we were welcomed as we are...out of unconditional love. And so, our welcome needs to be the same as Christ's welcome to us... We strive to be part of someone's journey into their new beginning, just like someone was there for us on our new beginning."

Sermon by The Rev. Carol Duncan on the First Sunday of Advent.

Text in image: "Today is the first Sunday of Advent it is a new beginning, a day to rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the utmost goal of our lives, living into our eternal lives until we are fully immersed in the holy. ...We must stay awake and aware that as we live our ordinary lives, we are living in God's realm, at this present moment. In ordinary life we're living in the not yet, until we enter the greater life."

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel remembers his safety training as a lifeguard in his youth. Something that today's Gospel reading seems to counter, in the amazing way that only Jesus can. Sermon based on the Gospel reading for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, Christ the King, Luke 23:33-43.

The Rev. Barbara Ballenger speaks of the power of imagination, especially God's imagination, and the resulting radical hope found in God's vision for the kingdom.

Sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost on the assigned readings for the day, especially the Gospel of Luke 21:5-19.

"Susan Griffin writes, "...every important social movement reconfigures the world in imagination. What was obscure comes forward, lies are revealed, memory shaken, new delineations drawn over the old maps. It is from this new way of seeing the present that hope for the future emerges." Now, if this is true of social movements, it is especially true of the Gospel. It resonates throughout the Scriptures and the religious practices and beliefs that spring from them, because these are immensely powerful acts of imagination; God's imagination and ours. And they do reconfigure the world with the resulting acts of resistance and their absurd hope."

"St. Martin is our model of gaining and loosing, on our way into a deeper walk with Christ as the one who supplies, Christ the one we depend on, Christ the one who finds us the way. Let us be blessed that the relinquishing and the adding, the gaining and the loosing, the dying and the rising: they are our story, by grace."

"At that time, and at this time, there was a fair amount of people who interpreted scripture to say if you are prosperous and wealthy, you are especially favored by God...the prosperity Gospel is this thing. I think Jesus is working against it saying, God is blessing us both in our gains and our losses, in the up and the down, in the consolation and the desolation. God is surrounding us with God's love and blessing through all the rhythms of life...God's abundance surrounds poor and rich alike. He's trying to release the rich man, the crowd of people, and the disciples from a toxic story."

Sermon for St. Martin's Feast Day on the Gospel from Luke 18:18-30.

Who are your saints? Are they people who served on the battlefields of years past? Or those who contend with the everyday battles of poverty, grief, and illness? At our All Saints' and All Souls' Evensong, The Rev. Laura Palmer reminds us of some of St. Martin's forgotten saints, while she calls to mind some from her own life that they may help us listen for the voices of our own saints.

All Saints' Day:
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/HolyDays/AllSaintsC_RCL.html

What does it mean to be kadosh - set apart? How does our baptism or the life of the saints help us to understand those times in life when being set apart was not what we asked for, but is a blessing nonetheless? Here from the Rev. Thatcher in her All Saints' Sunday sermon.

All Saints' Day
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/HolyDays/AllSaintsC_RCL.html

We've been on a journey to Jerusalem this summer, did you notice? The Rev. Barbara Ballenger guides us along the way and reminds us that the challenges Jesus offered his followers while he was living are still what we must contend with today.


The 20th Sunday after Pentecost
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp25_RCL.html

As humans we do not like dealing with in between. We prefer people to fit nicely into boxes that we can define and know what to expect. But our God lives and moves in those between areas. The Rev. Anne Thatcher preaches about the cleansing of the 10 Lepers on this Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Gospel: Luke 17:11-19
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp23_RCL.html