Sermon delivered on Trinity 17B, Sunday, September 26, 2021 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Esther 7:1-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5.13-20; St. Mark 9.38-50.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

What are we to make of the rather sordid but compelling story of Haman’s execution in our OT lesson? How about St. James’ example of God answering Elijah’s prayer only after Elijah had slaughtered the prophets of Baal? And how about Christ’s hyperbolic exhortation for us to rid ourselves of any source of sin? Our lessons this morning all remind us in their various ways that God hates evil of any kind and acts in judgment against it, both in this mortal life and at the Day of Judgment. What then should be our response as Christians to this rather unsettling reality? This is what I want us to look at this morning.

Let us start by acknowledging the terrifying truth that God is no doting old grandpa, willing to look the other way with a wink and a snicker at our sins. To the contrary, it is not too strong a statement to say that God hates evil and sin in all its variety. Why? Not because God is some angry bully waiting to come down hard on wrongdoers. If that were the case, why would God have made us in his image? Why are we still even here? It’s not because of our own virtue and righteousness! No, God hates evil and sin of any kind because sin corrupts us and dehumanizes us, i.e., it slowly erases God’s image in us so that we can no longer be his stewards called to run God’s world as God created us to do. And this should make sense to us because we all know how evil can evoke anger. Who in their right mind doesn’t hate that drug dealers destroy lives and bring ruin on others, all for the sake of money? Who among us doesn’t abhor child molesters and pedophiles for the same reasons? God created us to be fully human beings who bear his image and who have been given the awesome responsibility to rule God’s world on God’s behalf, reflecting God’s goodness out into creation and reflecting creation’s praises back to its Creator. Sin and the evil it creates corrupts and perverts our holy task as God’s image-bearers and God cannot countenance that forever, patient as God has demonstrated he is. God did not speak creation and us into existence to foster madness and loneliness and sickness and alienation, and because God loves us and wants us to live with him forever, God cannot look the other way on our sin forever. In our OT lesson, e.g., Haman plotted to destroy God’s people the Jews, in part to satisfy his megalomania. (I would encourage you to read the entire book of Esther as it is as compelling a story as you will ever read and God’s name is not mentioned in it once). But there God is, operating behind the scenes, judging Haman’s evil to bring justice to God’s people, wicked as they were, because of God’s love and faithfulness to them. 

In our epistle lesson, St. James’ reference to Elijah points us to God’s relenting in his judgment on the land and its people only after the prophets of Baal had been slaughtered. As with the story of Esther, healing could not occur until God had decisively dealt with the sins of evildoers. Why? When we are beset continually by evil, we can never be fully healed, again reminding us why God will not let sin and evil reign forever—it sickens and kills us and God will not tolerate that massive disorder to his good creation and creatures forever. God loves us too much. In our gospel lesson, Christ essentially tells us the same thing. Be prepared to cut out anything in your life—even if the things you must cut out are inherently good and useful—if they cause you to continue to sin because God will one day judge you and you will find yourself in the flames of hell forever. Christ’s warning is a stark reminder that without outside help from a power stronger than the powers of Evil and Sin, none of us have any hope of ever enjoying life in God’s new world when it comes with our Lord’s return. None of us like to think about this and the thought of eternal separation from the healing and life-giving power of God is so terrifying that many of us spend our time living in denial and deflecting the truth, convincing ourselves that God would never do that because God is too loving and merciful. Yes God is loving and merciful. That we are here worshiping God this morning is living proof of that truth. God is not the problem here. We are the problem because we are all slaves to the power of Sin, and unless something is done about that, we are all doomed to eternal destruction. We see it in the story of Adam and Eve, who were expelled from paradise after the Fall. God cannot tolerate forever that which corrupts his beloved (that would be you and me in all our unloveliness). We see it in the story of God’s Tabernacle in the wilderness. God gave Moses strict rules about how sinful humans could approach God’s holy Presence and those who did not follow those rules found themselves destroyed. Whenever the profane tries to meet the holy on its own terms, it never turns out well for the profane! Our problem today is that most of us have persuaded ourselves that this simply can’t be true. We’ve become too used to living with and rationalizing sin, both ours and the sins of others. This is emphatically not the biblical witness on the subject, however, and by God’s grace we would be wise to take these warnings seriously.

But all is not lost, my beloved. Far from it. While it is true that none of us can extricate ourselves from the death grip of Sin’s power and all of us are evildoers, some worse than others, it is also true that the Father’s great love for us is greater than our slavery to Sin. As St. Paul proclaims in his letter to the Romans, God demonstrated his love for us by sending his Son to die for us (i.e. God became human in the man Jesus), even while we were God’s enemies, estranged from and hostile toward God, to bear his own right and just judgment on our sins, thereby clearing the way for us to have a future and a hope. The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ was and is the turning point in human history where God the Father acted decisively for us to save us from eternal damnation and open the way for us to live in God’s holy Presence forever. But we don’t have to wait till the new heavens and earth arrive. We can enjoy sweet, albeit imperfect, communion with God right now, enjoying his presence when we worship him together and feed on Christ’s body and blood each week. To be sure, evil still runs rampant in God’s world and we all suffer from it. Everyone of us here today brings our sorrows and fears and brokenness to worship. But just like God’s power working invisibly to bring justice to the wicked Haman, God’s power in and through the Holy Spirit, through his word proclaimed and preached, through sweet fellowship with each other, and in and through the Holy Eucharist, God is at work in us now, both individually and collectively, to bring healing and hope as he makes his invisible Presence known to us, thanks be to God. 

So what should be our response to God’s goodness, mercy, love, and truth? How are we to live faithfully in the midst of increasing chaos and disorder? We start by believing the promise that in Christ we are saved from our sins and God’s wrath and judgment on them. Just as God provided for our rebellious and frightened ancestors after he expelled them from paradise, just as God remained faithful to his stubborn and rebellious people despite sending them into exile, and just as God remains faithful to us by blessing us with his Holy Spirit, so we are reminded that God’s promise to free us from our slavery to sin and evil will be ultimately fulfilled, even if only partially now. We have Christ’s Death and Resurrection to remind us always that God’s will and purposes to heal and rescue us will be done fully when Christ returns to finish his saving work on our behalf. Come Lord Jesus. This must create in us thankful and grateful hearts. When we begin to recognize the enormity our sin and rebellion against God and what God has done to rescue and heal us from those sins, we cannot help but have grateful hearts, hearts (or will) to love and serve Christ and others for all that he has done for us. And when we really believe the promises and are persuaded that despite our sins and foolishness, God still loves us and wants us to be with him forever, forgiving us through Christ’s blood shed for us, we will experience new healing, healing that flows from a thankful heart. 

Our healed hearts will also compel us to pray for others, especially our enemies—we may hate drug dealers and pedophiles, but we’d better be praying for their repentance and salvation—even as we long for real justice, not the phony kinds of justice that various groups try to foist on us today, but the kind of justice that flows from God’s holy heart. We pray ultimately with the realization that we too are evildoers who deserve God’s justice and so we pray for God to heal our enemies and the hearts of evildoers so that they will not suffer such a terrible fate, the fate we too would suffer without the healing love of Christ. Far from being ineffective, prayer is one of the most powerful weapons we Christians can bring to bear on evil and God’s good but sin-corrupted world. But we pray with eyes wide open, realizing that we are at war with the forces of evil who hate us and want to destroy us, and so we bring our fears and sorrows and needs to God, trusting that God is working invisibly as God always does to bring his world and its disordered creatures to rights. There’s more to all this, but there is certainly not less. Let us as God’s holy people bring our prayers to bear on this world and its people, repenting of our own sins and trusting our holy and loving Father to bring about his promise to heal and restore us according to his good will and purposes for us. And let us make sure we do this together as God’s people in Christ because the promise is for us together. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. 

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon delivered on Trinity 16B, Sunday, September 19, 2021 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Proverbs 31.10-31; Psalm 1; James 3.13-4.3, 7-8a; St. Mark 9.30-37.

Let the words of my mouth & the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock & our redeemer. In the name of God: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.

The lectionary picks up right where it left off last week with the theme of wisdom. In our texts for today, there’s a contrast between two types of wisdom—worldly wisdom and wisdom from above; the way of man and the way of Christ; false wisdom and true wisdom.

In our gospel reading (Mark 9:30-37), the disciples exemplify worldly wisdom. For the second time, Jesus tells His disciples that He will He handed over to men, that He will suffer and die, and that He will rise again (v. 31). They don’t really understand what He means (v. 21), but apparently, they grasped enough to realize that Jesus was about to be gone. We cannot say for sure, but perhaps this is what led to their argument about who was the greatest (v. 34): if Jesus was going to die, who would take His place? Surely that vacuum of leadership would be filled by the greatest of Jesus’ followers. This is worldly wisdom on display. Conventional wisdom tells us it’s a dog-eat-dog world. You gotta look out for #1. You have to seize every opportunity and make a name for yourself. The message of our culture is to chart your own course, be whoever you want to be, do whatever seems right or feels good to you, follow your heart. This is how one finds true happiness and inner peace.

But there’s just one problem with this sort of “wisdom”—it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. It doesn’t produce the kind of results it promises. Scripture warns that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). Following our own sinful desires and selfish ambitions will never truly satisfy our deepest longings. Instead, it will inevitably lead to heartache and pain, and not just for us, but for others who happen to be in our orbit. St. James tells us, “Where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind” (James 3:16). In our self-centered pursuits, we use and abuse others to get what we want (James 4:2). Our psalm warns us where this well-worn path will ultimately take us: “The wicked will not stand in the judgment . . . the way of the wicked will perish.” (Psalm 1:5-6). Likewise, Proverbs 16:25 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” The bottom line is this: so-called worldly wisdom is not really wisdom at all. It’s folly. As St. James says, “It’s earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (3:15). If we chose to follow the way worldly wisdom, we do so to the peril of our own souls and to the determent of those around us.

But there is another way: there’s true wisdom, wisdom that comes from above. Jesus takes the wisdom of the world and turns it on its head. He tells his disciples, “Whoever wants to be first [in His kingdom] must be last of all and servant of all” (v. 35). Jesus draws their attention to a child. Children occupied the lowest place on the social ladder; they had no status and no authority. And yet, in a parallel passage, Jesus says one must become like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3). True wisdom is rooted in humility. As St. James tells us, “Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality and hypocrisy.” Jesus perfectly embodies this true wisdom. While the disciples argued about who was greatest, Jesus had His eye toward Calvary where He would take on our sin and lay down His life so we could have eternal life. Instead of following His own desires or charting His own course, Jesus humbly submits to the will of the Father. Jesus shows us that true wisdom does not begin with selfish ambition but with humility. True joy and contentment are not found in self-actualization or in following the cravings of our flesh, but in submission to God’s ways. If we want to know what it looks like to live according to wisdom from above, let us look no further than Christ, the Wisdom of God in human flesh. (1 Cor. 1:24).

But if we want to learn to live in wisdom, we need more than just an example. It’s not enough for me to say, “Be like Jesus!” We can’t do that on our own. Our epistle reading tells us that “envy and selfish ambition” come from “our hearts” (James 3:14), that our conflicts and disputes come from “cravings that are at war within [us]” (James 4:1). We need more than an example. We need to be transformed from the inside out. And thanks be to God, that’s exactly what Jesus came to do, to make us into new creations by the power of the Holy Spirit.

How does this happen? Sanctification takes place when we avail ourselves of the means of grace that God has given us, when we do the kinds of things we do when we gather for worship. We must humbly confess that “following the devices and desires of our own hearts” leads us down the wrong path and ask God to guide us in His ways instead. As our Psalm instructs us, we learn the “way of the righteous” from God’s Word as we meditate on it. God’s Word reveals God’s ways. But not only does God’s Word give us commands and principles to guide the way that we live, it also tells the gospel message—the story of how God is redeeming us—and the whole world—through the death and resurrection of His Son. As we read the gospel message—and as we see it reenacted as we celebrate the Eucharist—God’s Spirit is at work, shaping and molding us into the kind of people that God calls us to be. Confession, Holy Communion, regular reading and study of Scripture—these are just a few of the ways that we can “draw near to God” as our epistle reading admonishes us (4:7), but when we do, we can be assured that he will “draw near to [us]” and cultivate in us the gift of wisdom from above.

As we close, let us do as St. James instructs (James 1:5) and ask God to grant us His wisdom with a prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas:

O God, Creator of all that is,
From the treasures of Your wisdom,
You have arrayed the universe with marvelous order,
And now govern with skill and might.
You are the true fount of light and wisdom.

Pour forth a ray of Your brightness
Into the darkened places of our minds;
Disperse from our souls the twofold darkness into which we were born: Sin and ignorance.

And since you have given us the privilege to share in the loving, healing, reconciling mission of Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, in this age and wherever we are,
May your Spirit make us wise;
May your Spirit guide us;
May your Spirit renew us;
May your Spirit strengthen us.

So that we will be
Strong in faith,
Discerning in proclamation,
Courageous in witness,
Persistent in good deeds.

May You guide the beginning of our work,
Direct its progress,
And bring it to completion.
You who bring all that is good to its proper end,
Now prosper the work of our hands.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord,

Amen.

Sermon delivered on Trinity 15B, Sunday, September 12, 2021 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Proverbs 1.20-33; Psalm 19; James 3.1-12; St. Mark 8.27-38.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

We turn our attention today to the biblical teaching on wisdom and foolishness, looking at both in the context of how our other lessons apply them. When Scripture speaks of wisdom and foolishness, what is it speaking about? In the Bible’s economy, how do we know a wise guy (or gal) from a fool? How do we become wise? These are some of the things I want us to look at today.

We are introduced to Lady Wisdom in our OT lesson. At first glance she appears to be quite harsh and demanding, threatening to mock those who do not seek to know her and wind up in a pickle. But when we look closer at her words, we see she is warning us to do what we can to escape the consequences of our foolish thinking, speaking, and behaving. Unlike current “wisdom,” Scripture is very clear in teaching us there are consequences to our words and actions. Better to be wise than to get jammed up over our foolishness. We would be wise to heed her advice.

And what is the essence of wisdom? Pr 1.7 tells us: Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge (wisdom). In other words, wisdom is based on us developing a real relationship with God so that we know him and as a result of that knowledge can develop a healthy, reverent appreciation and awe of God (and sometimes knee-knocking fear when necessary) to help us navigate through life with all its changes, chances, and complexities in ways that allow us to become fully human and thus live up to our status as God’s image-bearing creatures. Simpletons in biblical language are those who have not yet learned this truth regarding our need to conform our lives to God’s teaching, will, and created order but are open to it; whereas fools and mockers have been exposed to the truth and reject it, and worse yet, even mock it. As we shall see, wise folk have a hope and a future. Fools and mockers do not.

Before we look further at wisdom and foolishness, let us first acknowledge that the human race is prone to foolishness because of our fallen nature and enslavement to the power of Sin. We only become wise by the grace and power of God, not chiefly our own efforts, important as those efforts are. So what does wisdom and foolishness look like on the ground, in the context of our mortal lives? All our lessons provide us with some key insights and wisdom (no pun intended) into this question, although the manifestation of wisdom is certainly not limited to what our lessons show us. As we shall see, Scripture often teaches us truth inside the story of the history of God’s people contained in it. We would be wise to learn this simple truth as it helps provide us with needed context to better see how God operates in his created order and its creatures. 

We turn first to our Psalm lesson with its declaration that all creation declares the beauty and handiwork of its Creator (cf. Rm 1.18-20). We see the breathtaking beauty of God’s created world and order—the beauty of nature, of a starry sky at night, of families and all healthy relationships, especially the God-ordained relationship of husband and wife consecrated at marriage. All these proclaim God’s goodness, wisdom, and beauty without ever speaking a word. Wise folk experience them and we just know in our bones that it’s all good, reflecting the bold declaration of Genesis 1-2 (that God created all things good). Fools do not and mockers actually scorn this truth. Then of course there is the beauty of God’s law, how God’s created order is intended to run and how we are to conduct ourselves as God’s image-bearers. Wise people follow God’s law and created order, submitting themselves to it. When they do, they find God’s blessing (not necessarily a reward) in the form of God’s peace and contentment. God’s wisdom teaches the wise to be humble and act accordingly toward God and people because we know we are only mortals and our days are but as grass: fleeting, temporary, prone to the vicissitudes of life. Fools reject this truth, generally favoring their own disordered and brave new world, a world that produces chaos and madness and disorder, a world that swirls around us with increasing intensity. The psalmist puts it like this: “Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good” (Ps 14.1, 53.1). Despite the testimony of God’s created order and of Scripture and God’s people, fools and mockers reject it all and even mock it. Perhaps the best biblical example of this is the chief priests and scribes at Calvary, mocking our Savior as he was dying for them (Mk 15.28-32). They were too foolish to accept God the Father’s appointed way to save them from eternal destruction because they didn’t have the needed humility or wisdom to see that they were incapable of saving themselves. And their formal training made them too proud to allow themselves to consider the possibility that when God’s Messiah did come, he might come in a way they never expected or anticipated. And we don’t get a free pass on this one either. How many times do we read and study God’s word and truth only to reject it by not believing it? How many times do we in effect say, “There is no God” because we think we know better than God in how his created order and our lives should be run? Every time our pride leads us to refuse to repent of the sins, or refuse to forgive someone who has wronged us, or refuse to advocate for the poor, the oppressed, the elderly, and the unborn, or worse yet when we fail to challenge the lie that Jesus is just one of several ways to God, to name just a few, we are those fools about whom the psalmist speaks. Doing the opposite shows we are learning wisdom because we seek to follow God’s will made known supremely and uniquely in and through Christ.

This leads us to our gospel lesson where we see wisdom and foolishness clearly on display, the latter in abundance. The story is a classic. St. Peter goes from the penthouse to the doghouse in the blink of an eye! He shows wisdom by acknowledging that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Messiah or anointed one, presumably from his interactions with our Lord up to that point. No beating around the bush for St. Peter! He comes right out and answers Christ’s question clearly and boldly. You are the Christ! But then St. Mark tells us Christ used St. Peter’s confession to teach his blind and foolish disciples that their thinking about God’s Messiah was all wrong. Christ was indeed God’s anointed one, but he had come to rescue not only Israel but God’s entire sin-sick world from our slavery to the power of Sin, not by being a mighty conquerer and lording it over others, but by dying for us to take on himself the Father’s holy and just wrath on our sins so that we would be spared of that wrath and made fit to live in the Father’s holy presence forever, starting right here and now in this mortal life. Ain’t nobody got time for that nonsense, Lord! St. Peter exclaimed. You see, Christ had totally violated his expectations of who God is and how God works. End-time judgment there will be and there will be no mistaking it when it comes. But not before our Father came to us in weakness and love to save us from ourselves and the power of Sin. The Kingdom comes on earth as in heaven via the cross and Christ’s blood shed for us, not via shock and awe as the world understands power. Only the wise, those who know the heart of the Father and are able to recognize and see it in the life and teachings of God the Son, God become human, can possibly hope to learn God’s radical new (yet very much old) wisdom made known in Christ. And to learn this wisdom requires the God-given humility to listen, ponder, and talk it over, both with God and each other. It is the humility and wisdom needed to submit ourselves to the power and authority of God’s word contained in Scripture, rather than putting ourselves above it so as to interpret it in ways that make us feel good and comfortable. If we don’t know God and are unwilling to get to know Christ and his ways, denying ourselves and carrying our cross so that we can follow him, we can never hope to become (or be) wise. Like the big shots of Jesus’ day (and ever since), we consider ourselves too smart, too sophisticated to believe in all this dying for our sins stuff. And the Resurrection? No way, baby. We all know dead people don’t rise from the grave. Yet here is Christ our Lord, inviting us to see him for who he is as he lives out the very heart and love and goodness and justice of his Father. Know God and we will know Christ. Know Christ and we will know God. Peter at this point in the story didn’t know either very well and he attempted to fit both into his own scheme of things. The result? His Master’s doghouse. Satan had tempted him in the wilderness to abandon his path to the cross and in St. Peter’s (likely) well-intentioned rebuke, Jesus saw the same dynamic at work. Christ could go to the cross because he knew without a doubt the Father’s will for him and had the humility to do that will, massively hard as it was (cf. Phil 2.5-11). The wise know Christ for who he is—the embodiment of the Living God—and believe his promise that we are freed from our sins by his blood and by the sending of the Holy Spirit, and that one day we too will have eternal life in a new embodied existence, all because of the Father’s great love, mercy, and grace. Fools reject this and live their lives accordingly. It’s no small thing to have to deny ourselves, our base and disordered desires in us, and be willing to learn how to live in the manner of Christ. It takes a lifetime and none of us do it perfectly. In fact, most of us do it rather imperfectly most of the time. But Christ is the only way for us to ever enjoy eternal life in the manner the NT promises it. Are you wise in this matter or a fool?

Last, we turn to our epistle lesson because here we see an important way we as Christians learn to live out our faith in Jesus Christ: taming our speech. We just saw how St. Peter’s tongue got him in trouble. We also spoke of the foolish speech we heard at Calvary as the leaders of Israel mocked God as they crucified him. We add our own folly to this. How many times has a thoughtless word caused harm and sometimes irreparable damage? (This is why gossip is so severely condemned in all Scripture.) It causes damage and harm, division and rancor. It is also a terrible witness to our faith. When we speak and act in the manner of the world (think Twitter, Facebook, all the discordant voices that swirl around us), how are we witnessing to Christ? How are we demonstrating a different and better way, a way the world desperately seeks but can never find in the secular domain? I see some of our own people regularly post things on FB that make me cringe. If I were one who hungered and thirsted for truth and beauty and real life and saw some of the stuff we post, I would high tail it as fast as I could. And we will have to give an account for our loose tongue as Christ himself warns us—rather worryingly, to me at least—about this: “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Mt 5.22). Here we see wisdom and folly in action again, this time in the realm of speech. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger, says Proverb 15.1. Wise folks understand and practice this wisdom. But at other times, a stern word may be needed. Wisdom tells us when, where, and how to apply it (or not). Fools reject this wisdom and act according to their own selfish and myopic desires.

I could give thousands of examples to illustrate the above, but you get the point and I encourage you to spend some time reflecting on this and talking about it together. In short, if we are putting anything or anyone above following Christ to the best of our ability in the power of the Spirit, or if we do not believe him to be who he says he is, the crucified and risen Son of God, we are fools and headed for utter and eternal destruction. There is no cause, no person, no identity, no political party, nothing in all creation other than Christ, that deserves to have our ultimate love, loyalty, and devotion because only Christ offers us eternal life. Learn this wisdom, my beloved. As Christ’s body we are called to live out God’s wisdom (and all that that entails) together, not just individually, and that means we must delve into the word deeply and together. To know God requires that we have a robust prayer life as well. And of course when we come to the Table to receive our Lord’s body and blood, we learn wisdom because we actually consume Christ as we rehearse and become part of God’s wisdom proclaimed in our Lord’s Death and Resurrection. May we all become wise guys and gals as we grow up to the full stature of Christ. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. 

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon delivered on Trinity 14B, Sunday, September 5, 2021 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

Father Sang does not do written manuscripts anymore because he is too big a shot. Nobody’s got time for that so click here to listen to the audio podcast of his sermon.

Lectionary texts: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2.1-17; St. Mark 7.24-37.