Sermon for Last Epiphany

Last Epiphany February 19 2012

The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Peter is a blurter. There are so many times in Gospels where he talks before he thinks: “Let me walk on the water with you, Jesus.” And the same person who was the first to blurt out, “you are the Messiah, Jesus” was also the one who said, “I do not know the man.”

He’s gotten an especially bad rap for this blurt, “Let’s make dwelling places, Jesus.” Over the years Biblical commentators have said Peter is just wrong and bad for wanting to build a dwelling place up on the mountain,

Sermon for Annual Meeting

Sermon for Annual Meeting: January 29, 2012

The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Well, here we are.  You’re stuck with me now!  But I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to the year to come. This is going to be an exciting year for Redeemer. The past year has also been an exciting one, as we talked through all the things we needed to, to make our decisions. We dug deep, really deep, and we found bedrock, shared visions and values that can form the firm foundation of our ministry going forward.  

Someone asked me, what’s the difference, what will be different now that we have a rector instead of a priest-in-charge. Officially, there may not be that much difference in the job description, but the job of a priest-in-charge is to look to the past, help facilitate healing, help a parish to get their feet back under them. And the job of a rector, I think, is to look to the future, to gather the vision of what can be, what God is calling us to be next.

Sermon for Social Justice Sunday

Sermon for Social Justice Sunday: January 15, 2012

The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Over Christmas, my extended family visited Hanover New Hampshire, home of Dartmouth College, and saw “Occupy Hanover”, a collection of tents and boxes and students and signs on a street corner. My kids were curious, and asked what it was.  Now, my family does not share the same political viewpoints in all respects, so there was sort of this pause, as we thought about who was going to answer the kids, and what each of us might say.  I think they got some good answers, but it also caused some interesting conversation between us and it sort of seemed to boil down to, how are we responsible for each other? Do we just do good on an individual basis, giving to charity and volunteering, or should our government, our society, somehow be structured so that people don’t fall between the cracks, so that larger resources are there for those who need them, or does that somehow force us to take care of each other, and is that a bad thing or not?

Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord

Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord: January 8, 2012

The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles reminds me of a great Episcopalian joke. I sort of collect Episcopalian jokes. This one is about a visitor who came to an Episcopal church, from another denomination. He loved the service and the music and during one of the particularly uplifting hymns he began swaying and waving his arms in the air. People sort of turned around and stared, and one of the ushers came over and told him, you’ve really got to stop that. He said, but I’ve got the Spirit! To which the usher replied, well, you didn’t get it here.

Sermon for the Epiphany Sunday

Sermon for the Epiphany Sunday, Transferred: January 2, 2012

By the Rev. Kate Ekrem

Now that all the parties are over, the traveling is done, the gifts are open, the wrapping paper is cleaned up, we can spend a moment, some of our first moments in this new year, considering what Christmas is really all about. It’s no secret that I sometimes get frustrated with the sentimentality of this season, although at the same time it’s fun to indulge in, too. But I think part of my frustration is that when we get sucked into the sentimentality of thinking of this as the most holy, special magical time of the year, we forget to ask, why? 

Sermon on Lay Ministry - by Jessie Maeck

“Fear and trembling,” those words we heard from St Paul this morning. You can bet I’m feeling both of those at this moment.

Nonetheless, I’m Jessie Maeck, and it’s a delight, on this day we celebrate all the amazing people who do lay ministry at Redeemer, to be invited to share with you what lay ministry has come to mean to me.

A young girl named Mary might have been the first lay minister, at least to Christians.

She said “yes.”

Another person who answered a call is the first son in the parable in today’s gospel.

We’re here to celebrate lay ministry today, right?

Most of us don’t get a visit from the Angel Gabriel, and we aren’t invited to give birth to a divine part of God either. But as soon as we move just a little beyond where those paralyzed priests and elders who challenged Jesus in our Gospel reading were, as soon as we give up enough fear to be able to listen, we will be called. And usually what we’re invited to do is, in fact, to assist in the birth of something Divine.

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

July 31, 2011  Proper 13A by the Rev. Kate Ekrem
Matthew 14:13-21

Sarah Dylan Breuer has observed, "Have you ever wondered why it is that, when we gather as a church to remember Jesus, we do it with a meal? If you think about it, it really could have been anything. We could have built statutes to remember Jesus, or held a dance. We could have made it a poetry reading, a teach-in, a weekly golf tournament -- but we didn't. When we gather as a church, our central act together in remembrance of Jesus is to have a meal."

In seminary I had sort of a left wing professor who said the symbol of Christianity should not be the cross, but the loaves and fishes.