Category Archives: What We Do

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Sermon–The Age to Come Starts Now–October 14, 2018

Sermon by William Bradbury

21 Pentecost—Proper 23-B/October 14, 2018

Amos 5:6-7,10-15, Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31

Folks my age use to divide the world before and after November 22, 1963. Before that date many of us were living inside the myth called Camelot, a magical kingdom of prosperity and hope. After Kennedy’s assassination that day in Dallas, we fell into a black pit where White power and privilege opposed the Civil Rights movement and then killed its leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. Then, we woke up to the nightmare of the Vietnam War and the social upheaval that followed from it. Continue reading →

Sermon: Worry and Flow–October 7, 2018

Sermon

Creation Care Sunday/ October 7, 2018

William Bradbury

Genesis 2:18-25, Psalm 148:7-14, Revelation 5:11-14, Matthew 6:25-34

Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” Some people get the meaning of this all wrong! They think Jesus is telling us to be passive, put our feet up, and God will fill our plates with mounds of food. Couch Potato spirituality! And since they know this is crazy, they dismiss Jesus as crazy too, or if not crazy, at least out of touch with how the real world works. Continue reading →

Sermon–Where is hell? September 30, 2018

Sermon

19 Pentecost—Proper 21-B/ September 30, 2018

William Bradbury

Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29, Psalm 19:7-14, James 5:13-20, Mark 9:38-50

Since our Gospel mentions it three times, we need to talk about hell. Some of us were taught by clergy and parents that hell is a real place in which God throws rebellious human beings, so that they can be punished for their sins. This hell is a place of conscious physical and psychological torment which lasts forever. Dante’s Inferno in the Middle Ages seared images of this hell into the psyche of the world. I remember reading it first in college and being struck by the image of the ring of hell where a man gnaws on another man’s head. The church promoted this view of hell because it assumed it was a deterrent to sin—“if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” Continue reading →

Sermon–Stereotypes or Reality–September 9, 2018

Sermon

16 Pentecost—September 9, 2018

William Bradbury

Isaiah 35:4-7a, Psalm 146, James 2:1-17, Mark 7:24-37

The name of Spike Lee’s new movie is “BlacKkKlansman”, which is funny, while at the same time edge of your seat exciting, and at the end emotionally draining, yet oddly encouraging. This true story is set in the 1970s when Colorado Springs hires their the first Black policeman, named Ron Stallworth, who then teams up with two white detectives to infiltrate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, as the Klan plots hatred and violence. Continue reading →

Sermon–Living with a Defiled Heart–September 2, 2018

    Sermon

15 Pentecost—Proper 17-B, September 2, 2018

William Bradbury

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9, Psalm 15, James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

They say that facts are stubborn things! Today Jesus gives us a fact that is as stubborn as a stone: Jesus says, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand…For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” He goes on to list some of those evil intentions that come from the human heart, listing both hot sins like adultery and murder and cold sins like envy and slander, so everyone can find themselves in the list and realize he is talking to us and not just to those people over there. Continue reading →