Sermons

April 28, 2024

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April 21, 2024

April 14. 2024

The Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, April 7th, was a children’s sermon and can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/live/-3Z0qTRMiHs?si=YcpDfgUOZCIJgb-u&t=1483

March 31, 2024

There was no sermon on March 24th, Palm/Passion Sunday. The reading of the Passion replaced the sermon.

March 17, 2024

March 10, 2024

March 3, 2024

February 25, 2024

February 18, 2024

February 11, 2024

February 4, 2024

January 28, 2024

January 21, 2024

January 14, 2024

January 7, 2024

December 31, 2023

December 24, 2023

December 24, 2023

December 17, 2023

December 10, 2023

December 3, 2023

November 26, 2023

November 19, 2023

November 12, 2023

November 5, 2023

The audio quality was unintelligible. The service is not as bad as the sermon for audio quality. See for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxQoIVF--AQ&t=1641s

October 29, 2023

October 22, 2023

October 15, 2023

October 8, 2023

This sermon is a Children’s sermon with animal and plant blessings and is best if viewed-here-St. Francis on YouTube

October 1, 2023

September 24, 2023

September 17, 2023

September 10, 2023

September 3, 2023

There was a technical problem with the livestream on September 3, 2023. The sermon preached was excellent and can be found, to read, by tapping the green button below.

August 27, 2023

August 20, 2023

August 13, 2023

August 6, 2023

July 30, 2023

July 16, 2023

July 9, 2023

July 2, 2023

June 25, 2023

No sermon on Pentecost 3- June 18, 2023

June 11, 2023

June 4, 2023

May 28, 2023

May 21, 2023

May 14, 2023

May 7, 2023

April 30, 2023

April 23, 2023

April 16, 2023

April 9, 2023

April 8, 2023

April 7, 2023

GOOD FRIDAY

The Christian tragedy of Good Friday is not only the crucifixion of Jesus but also the inadequacy of our response to it. At this grave, we confront every violent human suffering and death the world has known, and we cannot help but see the safe distance we’ve kept from them. We feel the weight of all the vigils we did not keep. Today, Christians grieve the inhumanity capable of “Roman Crucifixion” as surely as we grieve the inhumanity capable of “Crusade,” “pogrom,” and “holocaust.” We are weighted with the insufficiency and impotence of our uncertain guilt to change or reverse what has come of this. And we are vaguely aware that something in us recoils from his body - tortured, dying, dead.

Some of us will see in Jesus’ crucifixion and death the way in which God means to carry, in God’s own body, the violence and trauma of all unjust, untimely endings. Though we may remember that such endings as these comprise the average human experience, or witness, of death, the tragic reality is that we who are living must sometimes learn to forget; this is the ever present, ever necessary, ever insufficient human capacity for denial. If we are discerning, we know that Peter’s denial is not only an act of betrayal, but an inner state we share, one in which we seek to preserve our own humanity by turning from the loss of someone else’s. Good Friday is the reminder of our inescapable shame for our inescapable fear that, unless we learn to forget the faces of the world’s condemned and slaughtered, we will forget how to live.

There is every good reason for even Christian reluctance to be fully present here. In bowing our heads at the foot of his cross, we bow inward to the echoes of our imagination, to the faintness of a voice that is hoarse with fear and panic. Should we open our eyes fully, we will see on this empty cross his body as it was, with its opened flesh, its leaking fluids, its failing organs, and the cold damp of its death.

We look upon this cross knowing what the earliest Christians did not know: that the Church to come would, to its own shame - and to the horror of the one who died here – wield it as a weapon of war and conquest. We remember today what the Church would come to forget: the "power" of the cross as one of the places that God, who so loved the world, emptied himself out for us.

Good Friday is a holy day for Christians, not because Jesus’ suffering and death mattered more to God than any other suffering or death, or because it should matter more to us; the cross becomes holy for us when we recognize it as a place where God keeps vigil over (and within) every condemned and slaughtered body

Today, we look for what we cannot yet see: how God’s redemption of the world is often strangely hidden from us, even in death on a cross.

April 2, 2023

March 26, 2023

March 19, 2023

Our live stream had audio problems (Lent 4). This post is the audio after it was fixed. We apologize for the inconvenience.

March 12, 2023

March 5, 2023

February 26, 2023

February 19, 2023

February 12, 2023

February 5, 2023

January 29, 2023

January 22, 2023

January 15, 2023

January 8, 2023

January 1, 2023

December 24, 2022

December 18, 2022

December 11, 2022

December 4, 2022

November 27, 2022

November 20, 2022

November 13, 2022

November 6, 2022

October 30,2022

October 23, 2022

October 16, 2022

October 9, 2022

October 2, 2022

September 25, 2022

September 18, 2022

September 11, 2022

September 4, 2022

The audio quality improves at 2:25

August 28, 2022

August 21, 2022

August 14, 2022

August 7, 2022

July 31, 2022

July 24, 2022

July 17, 2022

July 10, 2022

July 3, 2022

June 26, 2022

June 19, 2022

June 12, 2022

June 5, 2022

May 29, 2022

May 22, 2022

May 15, 2022

May 8, 2022

May 1, 2022

April 24, 2022

April 17, 2022

April 16, 2022

April 15, 2022

April 14, 2022

April 10, 2022

There is a prayerful pause at 12:16-13:14 when Jesus dies.

April 3, 2022

March 27, 2022

March 20, 2022

March 13, 2022

The echo on the audio spoken part of the service for the Second Sunday in Lent made it unbearable to listen to. We apologize for this and are doing all we can to fix the problem. The entire service can be found here: https://songforchristchurch.org/events-index for the brave, the music lover (the music audio was unaffected), or the brave music lover. Thank you for your kind understanding and, we hope, your prayers for guidance.

March 6, 2022

February 27, 2022

We apologize for the poor quality of the audio on this sermon. The text is below the audio file for reference. Tap the page and it will enlarge for easier reading.

February 20, 2022

February 13, 2022

February 6, 2022

January 30, 2022

January 23, 2022

January 16, 2022

January 9, 2022

January 2, 2022

December 26, 2021

December 24, 2021

December 19, 2021

December 12, 2021

December 5, 2021

November 28, 2021

November 21, 2021

November 14, 2021

November 7, 2021

October 31, 2021

October 24, 2021

October 17, 2021

October 10, 2021

October 3, 2021

September 26, 2021

September 19, 2021

September 12, 2021

September 5, 2021

August 29, 2021

August 22, 2021

August 15, 2021

August 8, 2021

August 1, 2021

July 25, 2021

July 18, 2021

July 11, 2021

July 4, 2021

June 27, 2021

June 20, 2021

June 13, 2021

June 6, 2021

May 30, 2021

May 23, 2021

May 16, 2021

May 9, 2021

May 2, 2021

April 25, 2021

April 18, 2021

April 11, 2021

April 4, 2021

March 28, 2021

March 21, 2021

March 14, 2021

The sermons for Sundays previous are found below

Homily for Lent IV

Themes:

  1. We are lifted up to the kingdom of God by the grace of God through Christ.

  2. We receive grace rather than achieving it. Grace is bestowed as a charism/charity by the favor of God.

  3. Through the love of God, we are called to do great works not to attain salvation but because we have attained it.

  4. Christ lifted up is not Christ on the cross but Christ risen as an exemplar.


“Why did it have to be snakes?” I asked myself after reading through the lectionary for Lent 4. In Numbers, we find ourselves plodding with half a million Israelites through wastelands of Sinai 3500 years ago on the Bible’s worst camping trip. (It’s hard to understand how it could have taken them 40 years to get off the peninsula until you remember how many of them there were.) Around this time of Lent, I can really relate to those infamous complainers. This is the terrible middle time. The doldrums of a dolorous season.

I have often been guilty of finding the old testament inscrutable. When I was younger, I couldn’t really understand the point of it. Our understanding of God has been molded by Jesus and His teachings. What was the point of returning to the era of God as a vindictive and mercurial father when he had asked us to call him Abba? 

Going back to the OT fire and brimstone God — the God who sends snakes to kill people — felt like going back to the kind of misconceptions you get about someone when they make a bad first impression. Why would I ever take on those false assumptions about God when I know Him to be a God of mercy?

So why DID it have to be snakes? In the Gospel of John, Jesus has been approached by Nicodemus, an elder of Israel, who is looking for an explanation for baptism. To Nicodemus, the idea of being born again is as foreign as the idea of a camel passing through the eye of the needle might seem to us. It is very difficult to explain to someone a thing that you have experienced but they have not. Think of the ancient game of telephone that led from the Indian rhinoceros to the Ctesias’s descriptions that gave rise to the unicorn. (Indeed, any trip through the margins of an illuminated manuscript will transport you to a phantasmagoria of medieval imagination.) Jesus is constantly searching for metaphors that will explain the true relationship of God with humans. Some of them work better than others, and some of them require a bit of context to make sense to us now — think “salt of the earth”.

For Nicodemus, the metaphor back to the fiery serpents on Sinai made a connection that clicked with him. For us, the OT is the cultural context of who Jesus was as a man. To understand who he was ethnically, we need to understand Him as a Jew, and to do that, we need to have the context of who God was to the Jews.

People have been confused about God for a long time. Out of all the peoples of the world, the Jews were the ones chosen to know the true God. Everyone else wasn’t even in the same ballpark. Yet, even when God was revealing himself to people in physical manifestation during the time of Moses, Israelites needed a bronze snake talisman to remind them of God’s saving power. (Don’t judge them too harshly, though. They HAD grown up in ancient Egypt. Incidentally, you might see that same snake on a pole when you go to see your doctor or get your bill from your HMO. The Greeks called it the Caduceus — staff of Mercury — but it probably came from the same source. Snakes on poles were a thing in the ancient world.) Importantly, this snake was not mistaken for God at the time as the golden calf was. It would take about 500 years for that to happen. Hezekiah, the righteous 13th King of Judah had the statue broken up to bring them back to reality. The miracle of the snake reminds me of other saintly miracles involving people seeing images of Jesus or Mary and being healed. Images can be powerful things for people.

We are so connected to our own perception of the world. We experience the world through our senses, the beloved passions of the flesh that Paul warns us about in Ephesians. It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that searching for the creator of the universe in our experience of His creation is bound to give us a distorted perspective at best. Think of the Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant:

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. Another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear…

If we are constantly looking for God as a function of our daily experiences, we are liable to worship those experiences like the Judeans ended up worshiping the snake. We will become “children of wrath, like everyone else,” ruled by our emotions and a slave to our senses.

Often, we are brought to God through our fears. Fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of the harsh world around us, fear of our own loneliness, for we are born and die alone. And there is a sense in which fear of God is warranted, but it is fear in the sense of awe. Fear in the sense of wonderment. Fear in of the numinous infinite presence of God. A God who so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever”, proclaims the psalm. 

It continues:

13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, *

and he delivered them from their distress.

14 He led them out of darkness and deep gloom *

and broke their bonds asunder.

15 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy *

and the wonders he does for his children. — Psalm 107

Or, as Jesus reminds us in Luke:

11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”  — Luke 11:11-13

We are called to have faith in God despite the fiery serpents that may attack us in life. The life of Christ is an ultimate example. Christ, the anointed king of Israel. Raised up for death on a tree.

Jesus says: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” At first reading, the Gospel of John might bring this image to mind. Christ on the cross has dominated our symbology as Christians and redefined the meaning of the cross from a torture device to a symbol of hope. So much of our Lenten contemplation rests on the suffering of the Passion. The image of Christ on the cross is not dissimilar to the image of the snake on a pole. If the two were 100 yards away, you might have a hard time differentiating between them.

If we step a bit further back in the passage, though, we get this: “Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’... If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”

The title Jesus gives Himself, the Son of Man, is always interesting in that it implies the truth that He has become human.  In keeping our eyes on the prize, we should focus on Jesus raised above all. When we are lost in life, the risen Jesus is the beacon that leads us back to the wonder of the goodness of God. St. Paul teaches that we have been saved by grace. “God out of great love made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him”

Notice that he didn’t say that we have been saved because of our good deeds. There is a temptation to think of God as an extension of Santa Claus, keeping.a naughty and nice list and tallying up those good and bad things that we have done to make the final judgment. Not so!

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. - Eph 2:8-10

So our salvation is a result of a charism — a gift from God — and not of our charisma, unless it is charisma for goodness that comes from loving and being loved by Him. All of our good works spring from our excitement at being our true selves in Christ. Through the love of God, we are called to do great works not to attain salvation but because we have attained it. What Good News indeed!

The fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Laetare Sunday, from the imperative form of “laetari”: rejoice! This comes from the Introit to the Latin Mass: 

Rejoice, O Jerusalem; and gather round, all you who love her; rejoice in gladness, after having been in sorrow; exult and be replenished with the consolation flowing from her motherly bosom. I rejoiced when it was said unto me: "Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

(http://chantblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/introit-for-fourth-sunday-in-lent.html)

Let us rejoice, Christ Church! For Christ abides. He abides in us. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand in our hearts. Amen.

David Jutsum

March 11, 2021 - The Fourth Sunday of Lent

March 7, 2021

February 28, 2021

There was no sermon for the First Sunday of Lent

February 21, 2021

February 14, 2021

February 7, 2021

January 31, 2021

January 24, 2021

January 17, 2021

January 10, 2021

January 3, 2021

December 27, 2020

December 24, 2020

December 20, 2020

December 13, 2020

December 6, 2020

November 29, 2020

November 22, 2020

November 15, 2020

November 8, 2020

November 1, 2020

October 25, 2020

October 18, 2020

October 11, 2020

October 4, 2020

September 27, 2020

September 20, 2020

September 13, 2020

September 6, 2020

August 30, 2020

August 23, 2020

August 16, 2020

August 9, 2020

August 2, 2020

July 26, 2020

There was no sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

July 12, 2020

There was no sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

June 28, 2020

June 21, 2020

June 14, 2020

June 7, 2020

The video can be seen by clicking here and scrolling forward to 25:21

May 31, 2020

May 24, 2020

May 17, 2020

May 10, 2020

May 3, 2020

April 19, 2020

April 12, 2020

April 5, 2020

March 29, 2020

March 22, 2020

March 15, 2020

March 8, 2020

March 1, 2020

February 23, 2020

February 16, 2020

February 9, 2020

February 2, 2020

January 26, 2020

January 19, 2020

January 12, 2020

January 5, 2020

December 29, 2019

December 24, 2019

December 22, 2019

December 8, 2019

December 1, 2019

November 24, 2019

November 17, 2019

November 10, 2019

November 3, 2019

October 27, 2019

October 20, 2019

October 13, 2019

October 6, 2019

September 29, 2019

September 22, 2019

September 15, 2019

September 8, 2019

September 1, 2019

August 25, 2019

August 18, 2019

August 11, 2019

August 4, 2019

July 28, 2019

July 21, 2019

July 14, 2019

July 7, 2019

June 30, 2019

June 23, 2019

June 16, 2019

June 9, 2019

June 2, 2019

May 26, 2019

May 19, 2019

May 12, 2019

May 5, 2019

April 28, 2019

April 21, 2019

April 14, 2019

April 7, 2019

March 31, 2019

March 24, 2019

March 17, 2019

March 10, 2019

March 3, 2019

February 24, 2019

February 17, 2019

February 10, 2019

February 3, 2019

January 27, 2019

editor’s note- Due to technical difficulties there is no recording of the sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany.

January 20, 2019

January 13, 2019

January 6, 2019

December 30, 2018

December 25, 2018

December 23, 2018

December 16, 2018

December 9, 2018

December 2, 2018

November 25, 2018

November 18, 2018

November 11, 2018

November 4,2018

October 28, 2018

October 21, 2018

October 14, 2018

October 7, 2018

September 30, 2018

September 23, 2018

September 9, 2018

September 2, 2018

August 26, 2018

August 19, 2018

August 12, 2018

August 5, 2018

July 29.2018

July 22, 2018

July 15, 2018

July 8, 2018

July 1, 2018

June 24, 2018

June 17, 2018

June 10, 2018

June 3, 2018

May 27, 2018

May 20, 2018

May 13, 2018

May 6, 2018

April 29, 2018

April 22, 2018

April 15, 2018

April 8, 2018

April 1, 2018

March 18, 2018

March 11, 2018

March 4, 2018

February 25, 2018

February 18, 2018

February 11, 2018

February 4, 2018

January 28, 2018

January 21, 2018

January 14, 2018

January 7, 2018

December 31, 2017

December 24, 2017 (10:30 pm)

December 24, 2017 (10:00 am)

December 17,2017

December 10,2017

December 3,2017

November 26,2017

November 19,2017

November 12, 2017

November 5, 2017 All Saints Sunday

September 3, 2017

June 18, 2017  the Second Sunday after Pentecost

June 11,2017 Trinity Sunday

June 4,2017 Pentecost

May 28, 2017 Ascension Sunday- The Seventh Sunday of Easter

May 25, 2017 The Feast of the Ascension

May 21, 2017 The Sixth Sunday of Easter   

The Rev. Steven Metcalfe at Christ Church Rochester- 11am

As Easter coasts to an end, Jesus alludes to an increasing sense of anxiety within his community.  Jesus tries to reassure his friends that, though he will be going away, he will not be lost to them:  “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”  I can only imagine how confused they were, certainly at least as bewildered as they have been all along.  But that’s only part of it.  The intensity of their community life, the new life that Jesus has brought with him, which he has given to them,  now seems in jeopardy.  Most importantly, they are afraid of losing this unimaginable man who has opened their hearts.  Orphans…….what a forlorn and fearful word

Only this week have I come to see that “being orphaned” is an expression I can relate to throughout last year and in 2017. The country I have believed all my life exists, just as I was taught in school, on television, newspapers, or national holidays is not truly that pretty package.  It is only mildly embarrassing to admit to that level of lifelong naiveté.  Don’t imagine that that I am itchy to exhibit my child-like sense of reality.  No.  I just got the idea that maybe others might also be feeling a loss of innocence.  There is a tangled mess at the top levels of our society,  the other side of the coin of routine neglect of poor people and disinterest in ordinary citizens. Truth, justice, and the American way is the Superman myth. Influential people in high places value self enrichment above all else and our once honored institutions are stricken with paralysis or worse.  It is an anxious time no matter whether the horse you’re riding is blue or red.  And those whose horse got flimflammed are simply watching life slither and slide, here and there, feeling as dizzy as everyone else.   To hold all this together low level, chronic fearfulness has cynically been prepared to for our daily bread.

 

So, anxiety perfumes the air with an odious and ominous scent.  Do you know that there are lots of people who have only the foolish forces of this world in which to put their trust?  Millions of non- church people have jumped headlong into the world of Caesar as if salvation can come from political parties, ideologies, hijacked religion or bloated military capability.  So many embrace a life guide of maximum wealth, extravagant life styles, hunger for the privilege accorded to those with means, and as much control over as vast a portion of life as they imagine they have.  Scripture denies that our taproot into this deceitful world will bring forth our highest good.   I am always grateful to be among those who have vowed to “put my whole trust in God’s grace and love”.  In God is the only actual Truth we know.  As Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  We accept him as the unique incarnation of God, Love itself.

I have discovered (some might wonder what took me so long) that none of us can control the outcomes we prefer.  I may participate as I choose in the drama of life, but I am not here to critique anyone else’s script.  Who and what we are is not available to be fully understood.  It is very freeing to be able to choose to believe that what other people think of me is none of my business.  Perhaps the best we can do is treat human life as improv theater.  Each actor plays off the other, moving in a direction that is not planned out, neither right nor wrong.  Reality continually emerges as the interaction continues.  Of course there are millions of these dramas going on at the same time, ranging in size from households to global geopolitical and corporate networks.  Even the “powerful” cannot force reality to bend through the might of their pride.  Christians can powerfully witness to the world that it’s not what we have accomplished in our time allotted, it is, rather,  what kind of people we have become that will finally interest God.  We promise to God and one another that we will allow ourselves to be transformed into the full stature of Christ.

Christians have thus accepted, in the exercise of our free will, to participate in our own spiritual evolution.  The foundation of that choice is expressed by St. Paul when he says to the Greeks, 

From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’…. Isn’t “groping for God” the same thing as becoming a person of Love.?

Nothing is outside God.  Divine power is Love and there is nothing that can subvert God’s outpouring of love and goodness.  This is God’s creative power which has no equal or superior.  God is not so much the dictator of life, but the One who keeps the river of life flowing.  Jesus talked about the “water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Having life in Christ can energizes us in the Way, the Truth and the Life if we so desire.  God has given to us human beings the awesome ability to be conscious of life, aware of events and piecing them together in some sort of form or rational idea, even though these “ideas” are always provisional and likely not accurate.  We alone have been given the biological and spiritual equipment to live in conscious relation to God : so that we would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.

It appears to me that we are here to fulfill this sort of mission with human life.  As Jesus, who is no less and no more human than you and I, has lived his life as God leads, not to get something or somewhere for himself.  In him this infinite power of Divine Love has transcended the despotic ego self.  Jesus promises the same Love power is available to every single human being.  All have the Spirit of God, which is essentially the same as the Risen Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  As we grow in that love, we can grow out of the tricky deceit of the ego and reach that higher consciousness that contributes to the transformation of us humans, reconciling us with God and one another.  In other words, being in God through the gate that is Christ, we will find better tools to avoid conflict, to accept our brothers and sisters with compassion,  and trust in God rather than the nightmarish weapons too many people find so reassuring.  We do not have to accept a reality based on winning and losing.  The force of human will can never prevail over the power of Divine Truth.

May we release our anxiety, our wounds, our disappointments and even our rage to the God who is beyond our earthly squabbles and mortal acrimony.  The world will be the world and we will be God’s loving children.  Only the love we share from God in the Holy Spirit can raise us all up into the Mind of Christ.