St. Paul says [in the lessons appointed for today] “it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep." But don’t those words belong to the season of Advent?

This September, I hear in Paul’s words a reminder of what it is that we’re waking up to do.

St. Paul says, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” But what does it mean to pray?

Exodus as a whole is a story of God intervening in history. In the portion we read today, God has not yet spoken from a burning bush. Moses is still a child. But God’s work has already begun – through the work of human hands.

The story we heard this morning about Joseph is a story about plans going awry. In fact, almost everyone in the story has a plan that doesn’t work out as intended.

A crowd of thousands followed Jesus into the countryside. Jesus’s disciples realized that they had a problem. They don’t have the resources to feed so many. But still Jesus tells them to feed the crowd. And we all know how the story ends.

Let me tell you another story...

We’ve been hearing a lot of parables for the past few weeks. Today, Jesus gives us five parables in rapid succession.

And then Jesus says one more thing: “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

Maybe that’s a parable about how to hear all the others...

"The kingdom of heaven is like someone who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone slept, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away."

Scholars tell us that the weed Jesus talks about is probably darnel. In its early stages, it looks almost exactly like wheat. But it grows into something else — inedible, and sometimes even toxic.

Jesus says we can’t root out the weeds. Not yet.

So what do we do...?

Jesus “told them many things in parables, saying, Listen! A sower went out to sow.” Listen! Jesus says.

A parable is a story, but it’s a special sort of story. It’s not a history, or a memory, or even a morality tale. It’s a story that tells you something about God. And it never has just one meaning.

A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, with Lessons appointed for Independence Day

The men who gathered in Christ Church in Philadelphia in 1789 to write the first American prayer book knew what a state church looked like. They also knew from experience some of its downfalls... So when they wrote the first American prayer book, they made careful choices. They took the king out of the prayers, but they didn’t put George Washington back in his place. Someone proposed a feast for Independence Day. They said no.

Independence Day was added to our Book of Common Prayer in 1928. But even then, that choice was made with caution. The readings appointed are calls to humility...

Has our church lived up to our ideals?

I like the idea that we’re all connected through Abraham’s ancestry. But I’m not sure I’d want to actually be his child. One abandoned in the wilderness. One almost sacrificed on an altar.

These are hard stories. Some of the hardest in scripture. Jewish tradition doesn’t look away from this story, and we shouldn’t either.

There’s a gift in the hard reading...

Certainly, there was some drama in the apostles’ lives. But most of what even the most famous saints did was slower, more ordinary. They walked along dusty roads, traveled light, talked with those they met along the way.

And that’s what discipleship looks like most of the time, even today.

Again and again, God does new things. Again and again, we sing new songs.

One God, three persons. The Trinity is a mystery.

But we can learn about God by learning about ourselves — about the world the Father created, about the humanity the Son became part of, about the Spirit who still moves in the world today.

Good… Created in God's image… We matter to God… God loves us whether we’re useful or not… God’s love comes first….

Today, we remember the day the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’s disciples with “a sound like the rush of a violent wind” and with “tongues, as of fire”... the day the Apostle Peter stood up to speak, and reached back for the words of the Prophet Joel: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy..."

The question sounds a bit like criticism, but I’m not sure that’s fair. Because what those two figures in white robes are really doing is ...

What does faith offer when God feels far away, unknown, even unknowable?

“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.” Stone is a curious spiritual metaphor. If you look closely, though, you’ll find stone everywhere in scripture.

In 1937, the German secret police shut down a seminary in a town called Finkenwalde. For the two years the seminary operated, the students and teachers in Finkenwalde knew that they were under threat. But still they prayed together, studied together, and ate together.

The book of Acts speaks of a community that seems utopian: "they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” I think they were simply living a Christian life.

Look again at what the book of Acts is actually describing.