Sermon archive for category: Rev. Bernard Owens

I’d like to begin by talking about vestments. This alb that I wear – I should tell you that I bought this alb eight years ago. I was in seminary and I had to have one for my first parish where I was an intern. Just to let you know how space-age these things are, it’s kind of held together by a white shoestring that goes across on the inside. About six weeks ago I noticed that my alb string was becoming dangerously frayed. I turned to Candy and I asked, “What happens when it breaks?” Well it broke this morning..

Well I can report three sure signs that fall is approaching fast. One, I got to watch about two minutes of a very bad pre-season football game last night. Two, the acolytes were comparing the upcoming school schedules they had received this week with varying degrees of enthusiasm and dread. And three, as you passed through the narthex you probably noticed there were many opportunities to sign up for things…

Some of you may be familiar with a Steven Sondheim musical called “Into the Woods,” which is a retelling of many of the fairy tales that we’re all familiar with in a way that intersect one another so that new stories come out of it. The play begins with three story lines of some of these fairy tale characters who really deeply desire and ask for something…

When I hear of Jesus’ visit to the home of a Pharisee named Simon I imagine a somewhat formal setting. A Pharisee would have been a fairly important religious figure within that community, or at least regarded himself as important within that community. And when Jesus was invited, he was invited to sit at the table, and there were a number of people there with him…

Perhaps you noticed a similarity between two of the scripture passages we read this morning. The first we heard of Paul’s encounter with Lydia, Paul having heard in a vision an invitation to go to Macedonia where he goes and in Philippi he meets Lydia on the Sabbath…