Sermons from St. Martin-in-the-Fields

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

There are those people in our lives who showed us the faith. The Eunices and Loises and Pauls to us when we are an uncertain Timothy. The people who show us what faith is, what it means to be a person of faith, how to carry on when times get rough and we get a little doubtful or ashamed. The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel tells us about a few of those people in his life. Who is that person in your life?

Sermon based on 2 Timothy, the Epistle reading for the week, found at www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pen…_RCL.html#nt1

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. Gospel: Luke 17:5-10

When we are faced with uncertainty, perhaps is it just a lack of imagination in the great things that God has in store. If we put our trust in Jesus, in God as Lord, we will take hold of the boost we need.

Thank you to the Rev. Dr. William Flippin, Jr. for starting off our 2019-2020 Evensong season!

Evensong Service on the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp22_RCL.html

Church intercedes on behalf of God to the world and on behalf of the world to God. ...What does church as intercessor look like?...What would happen if the church abdicated its role as intercessor for the world? The Rev. Anne Thatcher explores these questions as a glimpse of the answers are revealed to us through the scriptures for this morning.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Gospel: Luke 16:1-13

God, again and again, chooses mercy and invites everyone to the party. Are we also willing to put aside our own ideas of who we are and how we define ourselves to accept the invitation to God's radical mercy party?

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Gospel: Luke 15:1-10
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost...

As St. Martin's holds our 4th Annual Celebration of Caribbean Emancipation Day, 400 years since the first enslaved persons were brought to this country, what does emancipation mean? And how do we continue to emancipate people from what binds them today?

Our guest preacher this evening is the Rev. René John, Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Trenton, New Jersey.

What examples do our readings this morning hold for us on what it means to become a beloved community? How does a beloved community act? What should we watch for? And how does our Becoming Beloved Community plan address these lessons? Rev. Carol Duncan guides us through these questions and reminds us that, "Whoever is not against us is for us."

Sermon based on the lectionary readings from the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, with the Gospel text from Mark 9:38-50.