11.7.21 All Saints Unbound
mcrigler's podcast
A sermon on John 11: 32:44
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9.12.21 Proper 19B: Speak Wholeheartedly
mcrigler's podcast
Sermon for Sunday, September 12th
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8.22.21 Proper 16B: Power of the Armor of God
mcrigler's podcast
Beloved— especially in such times as of this— my hope and my prayers is that as the writer to the Ephesians says we might “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power.” In a world doubled over in pain and suffering… in a world swirling with disinformation needlessly costing people lives… in a world reeling from the costs to our children of imposing ‘normal’ onto that which is not— in our world I pray that we might “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power” and declare the gospel boldly. From where I stand our world is in...
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8.15.21 Proper 15B: Matter Matters
mcrigler's podcast
sermon on John 6:51-58
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8.1.21 Proper 13B: Individual Right to decide for..
mcrigler's podcast
a sermon on 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
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7.25.21 Proper 12B: Acceptable Loss
mcrigler's podcast
A sermon on 2 Samuel 11
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7.18.21 11B: Compassion
mcrigler's podcast
A sermon on Marck 6:30-34, 53-56.
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6.13.21 Proper6A: Mustard Seeds
mcrigler's podcast
A sermon for Sunday, June 13th on Mark 4:26-34
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5.23.21 PentecostB: Catch Your Breath
mcrigler's podcast
Sermon on Pentecost (May 23, 2021)
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5.16.21 7thEasterB: Jesus and the Holy Potatoes
mcrigler's podcast
... I cannot help but me mindful of the liturgical moment in which we find ourselves. We are in that 7th Sunday of Easter, in the time between the Ascension of our Lord into heaven and the descending of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, upon the ministers, making the church the church and saying ‘it is time.” And so liturgically and actually we find ourselves in that liminal time of transition. We all know that life has changed, and what it has changed into being has not yet unfurled. We hear in that first chapter of Acts, in the time between Ascension and Pentecost that this the...
info_outlineThis too is a Christmas story. For John God’s dwelling with us did not start in Bethlehem among shepherds and magi but began before the dawn of creation. The Word of God, to be incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, has been with us from the very beginning. There was not, is not, and will not be a time when the Word of God is not with us. God is with us in “the bright blessed day and the dark sacred night” for this is, as Louis Armstrong reminds us, a wonderful world.
Because we know and believe and live with the grace and truth that God is with us, then my hope is that we will too will ring the bells and remind one another of God’s presence, ring the bells to prepare ourselves and invite others into worship, ring the bells to proclaim the Gospel, ring the bells for we are those who dream and those who dream change everything.
I am mindful this day of a poem that invites us to dream. A poem I have known in my soul for many years and a poem that Bishop Doyle shared with his clergy this Christmas day. The poem is “Ring Out, Wild Bells”, from the work in Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die...
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
My hope and prayer for each of us is that no matter the darkness or steep creaking stairs, no matter what, that we join in the sharing of the Christmas story and ring out, wild bells and as this year comes to a close and a new one dawns that we “Ring in the Christ that is to be.”