Sermons

Rev. Pamela DolanRogation Sermon“Bless the Things”May 5, 2024 Have you ever wondered why the Church blesses things? Not just people, but food and boats and houses and backpacks—all kinds of things. In today’s collect we are reminded that God has prepared “such good things as surpass our understanding” and we pray for the ability to love God “in all things and above all things.” As a bit of an aside, I must admit it makes me ridiculously happy that even our eloquent, beautifully written Prayer Book repeatedly uses the word “things” in this prayer. It’s one of those words that…

Anthony Amato“Abiding in Christ”April 28, 2024 Good morning! When our rector, Rev. Pamela, asked me to give today’s sermon, I admit to having felt some anxiety, maybe even some fear. I’m the type of person, after all, who gets nervous coming up here just to give the announcements. I’ve only recently become comfortable speaking in front of crowds after 5 years of public school teaching, and I’ve never officially preached in my life. In situations like this, I remind myself that even Moses had a fear of public speaking: “My Lord I have never been eloquent,” he says, “I am…

Here you can find all the sermons and recordings from Holy Week 2024. Good Friday, March 29, 2024“Reflections on Good Friday,” by the Ven. Margaret Grayden, text Easter Vigil, March 30, 2024“And then what?” by the Rev. Pamela Dolan, text Easter Morning“Amateur,” by the Rev. Pamela Dolan, text

The Rev. Pamela Dolan“Love Life or Lose it”March 17, 2024Text: John 12:20-33 The Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan Sermon for Sunday, March 17, 2024 Text: John 12:20-33 “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25). This is a startling idea if we take it seriously. It might make us think about some admirable heroes of the faith, saints and martyrs, who manage to live very simply and devotes themselves entirely to God—a monk in the Egyptian desert, perhaps, or Mother Teresa, or someone like…

The Rev. Pamela Dolan“Believe: Reconsidering John 3:16”March 10, 2024 It’s a bumper sticker. It’s a sign held aloft in a sports stadium. It’s a soundbite. It’s John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” This single passage has also, unfortunately, been used as a weapon to hurt and demean people who don’t follow a very specific way of being Christian. It’s that history of abuse, more than the words of the verse itself, that so often make this a…

The Ven. Margaret Grayden “Remember Your Baptism” February 11, 2024 “Remember your baptism!”  I’m so conditioned now that whenever I hear that phrase, I’m tempted to duck on the theory that someone—here’s looking at you, Ernie—someone with a sprig of rosemary is about to fling holy water in my direction.  In all seriousness, I appreciate those periodic reminders that come with asperging, or the ritual of asperges—the technical term for sprinkling a congregation with holy water.  It is important to remember, or if we can’t remember our actual baptism because we were baptized as infants or very young children, to…

The Rev. Pamela Dolan Would you change?: A Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday February 11, 2024 Almost 20 years ago, the great singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman released a song called “Change,” that begins with the lyrics: If you knew that you would die todayIf you saw the face of God and loveWould you change? Would you change? This feels like such a perfect question to ask after hearing today’s Gospel. What would it be like to be in the position that Peter and James and John are in and actually see Jesus in all his divine radiance—to see the face of God…

The Rev. Pamela Dolan Welcoming the Light: A Sermon for Candlemas February 4, 2024 Once upon a time in Ireland, some time in the fifth century CE, a young nun named Brigid believed that God was calling her to build a double monastery, a place where both men and women could devote their lives to God. The first thing she needed to fulfill this calling was land. Happily, she found a large area near Kildare that was perfect. “It was near a lake where water was available, in a forest where there was firewood and near a fertile plain on…

The Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan January 28, 2024 “Embracing the Unknown“ And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown”. And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way”. So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day…. These are the opening lines of a poem that became very…

The Ven. Margaret Grayden January 14, 2024 If you are feeling a little whiplashed by the liturgical calendar this year, you are not alone.  It seems like just yesterday it was the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and then a few hours later, it was Christmas Eve, and then a few hours after that, it was Christmas Day.  The Twelve Days of Christmas sped by.  We had one more Sunday to sing Christmas carols on what was also New Year’s Eve, and then by the following Sunday (can you believe that was only a week ago?), the Wise Men had come…

The Rev. Pamela Dolan January 7, 2024 In the lovely little volume, The Book of Joy there’s a story about humility that I found amusing. Apparently, it was a favorite of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s, although it’s almost certainly apocryphal. It goes like this: One day in the side chapel of a grand cathedral, three bishops were “standing before the altar, beating their breasts with great humility, saying how, before God, they were nothing.” Soon, a lowly acolyte “approached and started to beat his chest, professing that he, too, was nothing. When the three bishops heard him, one of them elbowed the other…