Homilies

Come with me [1] St. Clare’s Church September 2, 2018 Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 17 Song of Solomon 2:8-17 ( note the 4 additional verses plz! ) Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10 James 1:17-27 (10:00 am service only) Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Dedication verse of prayer: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. [2] ”  Amen. "Arise, my love, my fair one,                and come away;                for now the winter is past,                the rain is over and gone.                The flowers appear on the earth;                the time of singing has come"   Oh, to write such words as these. …   As some of you know I teach information science...

  Paying Attention First Sunday of Advent November 30, 2008 Isaiah 64:1-9 Ps. 80:1-7, 17-19  1 Corinthians 1:3-9  Mark 13:24-37   We thank thee God for thy care For thy bounty everywhere, For this and every other gift To thee our grateful hearts we lift. Amen “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."  –Mark 13:33, 37 I remember this time of year as a young boy feeling as if I were stuck between the times.   Thanksgiving is a recent taste; Christmas is so close, yet an interminable number of days hence.   The anticipation grew daily; and the waiting was agony. I remember my aunt giving us one of those Advent calendars on a festive cardboard poster, the dates of December marked with the paper doors that you opened for each day, with a little surprise picture or words behind each flap.   We put it on the refrigerator door and I would look at it every time...

  St. Francis Church Warden's Talk October 27, 1996   Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment.   And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."   (Matt 22:37-40.) When I left Wall Street three years ago, I decided to embark on a new career.   I ended up starting three.   In addition to the management consulting firm my brother Steve and I started, I became the Warden of the Vestry here at St. Francis', and also began publishing and reading verse, which had been my long-term avocation.   With your indulgence, I would like to talk about stewardship in terms of these three viewpoints: businessman, churchman and writer.   And   look at stewardship first as meeting a financial need, second, as building a community of faith, and th...

St. Francis' Church   Advent II   December 10, 1995   Gospel: Mark 1:1-8 "Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand."  "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."  He "wore a garment of camel's hair, and  a leather girdle around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey."  Now here was someone who could make a dull dinner party interesting!  Can you picture this?  A wild-eyed visionary, passionate about ideals to excess, a strict vegetarian, dressed in leather pants and a camel-haired sport coat.  Not bad.  Do you know someone like this?  Perhaps there is some distant cousin on the family tree that we don't like to talk about, let alone invite to Christmas dinner.  John would definitely qualify for a "black sheep" of the family if I ever saw one.  We have all crossed the paths of a such a character.  He's part Christopher Lloyd, the mad profess...