Sermon by Jim Bradley, El Hogar Missioner

July 29, 2012
by Jim Bradley

Hola Redeemer,
My name is Jim Bradley and I was one of the newbies that went to El Hogar.  From the first time I heard about the trip it was something that I wanted to do.  I had done a couple of similar trips when I was in high school down to the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky,  and spent 6 years in the Navy, so I figured that it would not be too different than what I have seen before.

This year the stars were in alignment, so it was my turn to go, but nothing I had done had prepared me for this adventure.

Sermon for July 22 2012 by Rev. Kate Ekrem

Proper 11B, July 22 2012

Rev. Kate Ekrem

"For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” That’s from our letter to the Ephesians this morning. And our Gospel says Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

 I used to tell a story about the Good Shepherd to Sunday school children using felt, I still have the felt pieces in my office.  There is felt green pasture and felt still water and also a felt sheepfold, brown strips of felt. Part of the story is to set them up like a fence or wall around the sheep, and to show that the sheepfold has an inside, and an outside, and a DOOR, and then you show how the door can be opened.

The church has walls. But Jesus has broken down a wall

Sermon for July 15, 2012 by Kate Ekrem

Sermon for Proper 10B July 15 2012
Mark 6:14-29
The Rev. Kate Ekrem

“When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him.”

This is not a two-dimensional  story we have today about Herod and John the Baptist. Herod’s not such a bad guy. He’s really interested in John’s preaching, he’s intrigued by what the prophet is saying about change and reform, he protects him from those who want to get rid of him, including his own wife Herodias, because John’s words to Herod about change and reform are actually quite personal.

The story says, John tells Herod, it is not lawful for you to marry your brother’s wife, which makes John sound like kind of an annoying moralistic person, but Herod’s family life was seriously out of control,

Sermon for 5 Pentecost by Bill Fortier

THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By Bill Fortier

Copyright Bill Fortier 2012, all rights reserved

Jesus: Now that I've stuffed myself into this two-piece ensemble, proving just how far I'll go to get attention, have a heart, Jesus. Take my words and tie them to folk's hearts. Take them beyond me and my noise, to You, Love beyond all sounds and words. Amen.

Math was never my strongest subject in school. I was a very mediocre math student. Big M: Mediocre. My low point, at least in my memory, was word problems. There probably were lower points but I've gladly repressed them. But I digress: Word Problems. A mix of words and numbers. My brain would melt as I tried to figure them out. Picture my brain sliding out my ears. Some have argued that my Big Mellon Cave has rung hollow ever since.

So let's refresh your memory, Try to follow along and figure:

If John and his traveling troop of 313 yodelers left Hoboken, New Jersey and then met up with 135 Marxist Librarians from East Lansing Michigan who were memorizing all of official flowers from each of the 50

Uhm.. why did this blog change colors?

Because your rector is not coordinated enough to figure out how to post black text from her sermon notes into a dark background without a lot of technical fiddling to change the text color. To spend less time fussing with the blog and more time for sermon-writing, we've switched to black text on white background. Sorry if it's momentarily disorienting. Stay tuned for Bill Fortier's sermon next week! (I have figured out how to schedule it for posting while I'm away...).

Sermon for 4 Pentecost

Proper 7B June 24 2012
The Rev. Kate Ekrem


This week my parents bought our 12 year old a Nerf gun. Thus nearly 13 years of forbidding gun toys in my house goes sliding down the toilet in a fit of grandparental indulgence. They also bought Fruity Pebbles, but I won’t go into that My son is over the moon about his new toy, and the reasons he likes it and I don’t like it, seemed to me to resonate with the story of David and Goliath we have today.


It’s just the sort of story a 12-year-old boy would love. Here is David, a young boy, not old enough to join

Sermon for 3 Pentecost: Sabbath by Rev. Kate Ekrem

June 17, 2012

the Rev. Kate Ekrem

So, it works really well when you are working on a sermon on Sabbath time to go on retreat, which is what I did this week. I gathered with some old friends, we each shared what was going on in our lives, our challenges and joys and frustrations, trying to get some perspective on it all, and then we went for a hike. We climbed Mount Kearsarge in southern NH, and when we finally got out on top, with a view stretching from Maine to Vermont, looking down at buildings that looked like little dots, and someone said, well, there’s some perspective for you. It almost goes without saying