Category Archives: Sermons

Sermon: How Is Your Faith Saving You?

Sermon by William Bradbury —October 13, 2019

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c, Psalm 111, 2 Timothy 2:8-15, Luke 17:11-19

The gospels tell us that Jesus’s ministry consists of three basic things: as Matthew puts it, Jesus travels around “teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.” Matthew 9:35 The ten lepers, who may have a variety of different skin diseases, understand that where Jesus is the Kingdom of God is and therefore God’s healing becomes possible. When he shows up in their border town these ten  shout out hoping to receive from Jesus the merciful healing of the Realm of God he has given to others.

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Sermon–Creation Care?October 6, 2019

Sermon: Creation Care Sunday–October 6, 2019 William Bradbury

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

You’re at a dinner party and a stranger asks: “Well, what’s your story?” What do you tell them? Do you tell them about–your job and family configuration? Do you go back to when you were born? Or do you go back further still to what country your ancestors came from 5 generations ago?

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Sermon-Retiring Time: September 29, 2019

Sermon: William Bradbury

16 Pentecost—September 29, 2019

Amos 6:1a,4-7, Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

This rich man has a problem—he has a life-threatening condition that he isn’t aware of. Every morning he gets up and cleans up. His wife fixes him two eggs over easy, toast, juice, and coffee. He reads the Jerusalem Post and laments the sorry state of politics. He tells the kids to be sure to take in their homework. He pats the dog. Finally, he puts on his suit jacket, kisses his wife, gets into his car, turns on NPR, and as he goes down his winding driveway, pushes the button to open the gate. He takes a right into the street and heads to his office. Living the dream.

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Sermon: Hold On Or Let Go?

Sermon: 15 Pentecost—September 22, 2019–William Bradbury

Amos 8:4-7, Psalm 113, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, Luke 16:1-13

Jesus says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

For several summers my older brother Bob was a canoe instructor at Camp Chattahoochee outside Atlanta, so it made sense when he bought a 13’ Grumman canoe. One beautiful summer day, when I was maybe 16 and Bob was 19, we went canoeing on the Chattahoochee River near our home. We put in and start going with the steady flow of the river. We take the right fork around a small island, but there is an enormous fallen tree blocking our way. No big deal, we’ll just pull up next to it, turn around and head back to the other side.

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Sermon: Do I Need Saving? September 15, 2019

Sermon: William Bradbury

14 Pentecost—Proper 19-C-2, September 15, 2019, Exodus 32:7-14, Psalm 51:1-11, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10

If you didn’t grow up in the Episcopal Church, you may not be aware that there is a service in our Prayer Book called Holy Eucharist: Rite One, which uses the liturgy and language from the time of Queen Elizabeth I. It is the only Communion service in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, so all of us of a certain age grew up with it and many, like my Father, loved it.

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Sermon: Preach down a church? September 8, 2019

Sermon

13 Pentecost—Proper 18-C-2/ September 8, 2019

William Bradbury

Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 1, Philemon 1-21, Luke 14:25-33

I remember hearing a talk by a pastor of a church in Atlanta and someone asked him, how he had built a church with 2000 members. He said “Well, when I started, we had 300 hundred members, but after a year I had preached them down to 12, and with those 12 God built this church.”

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Sermon–September 1, 2019

Sermon by William Bradbury

Sirach 10:12-18, Psalm 112, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, Luke 14:1, 7-14

“On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.” This is not the “let’s watch the great man in order to raise ourselves up into greater faithfulness”, but rather it was “let’s watch this rebel in order to find a way to take him down.”. Which raises the question, what is it about Jesus that so threatens the religious leaders?

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Sermon: “Interpreting the Present Time?” August 18, 2019

Sermon

10 Pentecost—Proper 15-C-Track 2–August 18, 2019

William Bradbury

Jeremiah 23:23-29, Psalm 82, Hebrews 11:29-12:2, Luke 12:49-56

Jesus is right: We know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, even without a weather app on our phones. We say, “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning; Red sky at night, sailors delight”. But Jesus is also right when he says, “You hypocrites…why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Continue reading →