Ascension Written Sermons

The Rev. Robert P. Travis Christmas 1 - Year A RCL Episcopal Church of the Ascension December 26, 2010 8 and 10:30am Isaiah 61:10-62:3 and John 1:1-18 Sermon Text: “And the word became flesh and lived among us.” My daughters like to cuddle, in case you don't know them, they are 6 and 4 and ¾. Annalise, is 4 and ¾ and she will tell you that. She has liked cuddling ever since she was a baby. I remember when my dad held her in her early months of life. As a newborn she laid her head down on his shoulder, and he said, “Aw, she cuddles!” She has a bed full of cuddle toys, but Annalise has been known to say that she needed a special cuddle toy or else she could not go to sleep. So it struck me as a pure expression of love, this week, when Annalise told me this about God. She said, “God is a great big cuddle toy who all the children of the world can cuddle at once. He cuddles with us every night, even though we can't see him.” She said that to me with the confidence of a biblical trut...

The Rev. Amy Morehous Advent 4, Year A Church of the Ascension December 19, 2010 Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; show us the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. Haul out the holly Put up the tree before my spirit falls again Fill up the stocking I may be rushing things but deck the halls again now For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder Grown a little sadder, grown a little older And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder Need a little Christmas now For we need a little music, need a little laughter, need a little singing ringing through the rafter and we need a little snappy, happy ever after We need a little Christmas now! Most of us have probably heard this song - probably sung in a snappy, peppy tempo, with lots of accompanying strings and jingle bells, and a breathless chorus of voices. I have to confess that I’m normally a terrible Episcopalian. I love Christmas carols, and I sing them in my car usually from Thanksgiving, until Christmas. Bu...

Advent 2, Year A December 5, 2010 Twists and Turns The Reverend Dr. Howard J. Hess I. Introduction: The season of Advent twists and turns. These twists and turns produce a certain tension in our spiritual lives. At one moment in time we are moved by the wonder and great mystery of Advent, while at other times we are beset by distractions, disruptions, and delays. Which is it going to be – the disturbances or the divine presence of God in the Incarnation? The lectionary designers seem to be communicating the same kind of tension in the readings selected for today. For example, Isaiah wrote: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, and a branch will grow out of his roots . . . The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” This is the warm, loving picture we see on many of our Christmas cards – scenes of stillness and peac...

The Rev. Robert P. Travis 1st Sunday of Advent Sermon – 8:00 and 10:30am Church of the Ascension, Knoxville TN RCL Advent 1 Year A 11/28/2010 Text: Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44 The welcome we look forward to In the prophecy of Isaiah is fantastic! People of all nations will stream to the mountain of the Lord like a river in the Smokey Mountains Pouring over and around the rocks and other obstacles Streaming into that holy city Where all will be made new. Some would find it scandalous, That people of such diversity would all be welcomed, Into the city of God. And many who come shall say “come let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." They’re not inviting us to go up there So that we can be judged by human standards Or where we will discover that we had it right all along It is a place where we can learn to walk in his paths. But wait! I thought that was...

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost October 31, 2010 I Want to See Jesus The Reverend Dr. Howard J. Hess I. Introduction: First of all, I want to share with you how wonderful it is to be home at Ascension. We have missed you and have looked forward to telling you the story of our trip to Madagascar. Installment one begins this morning. Many of you grew up with Zacchaeus, just as I did. Week after week in Sunday School, we sang about this little man who climbed up into a tree in order to see Jesus and wound up hosting him for dinner. In the Middle East, there is great importance placed upon sharing a meal together; therefore Jesus’ decision to invite himself to Zacchaeus’ home to share a meal had a great deal of positive meaning. Even the initial step that Jesus took to recognize Zacchaeus prompted Zacchaeus to make sweeping changes in his lifestyle. These changes were radical, but they began with the intention as small as it might be,...

The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost Proper 24 Year C Luke Luke 18:1-8 The Rev. Brett P. Backus (The following is transcribed from a sermon given without a script and is not an exact copy.) "And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?" So in seminary there was this joke or play on words that students would say in times of high stress, when it was exam time or time to turn in a lot of papers. Instead of saying "it's time to go to the seminary," they would say, "it's time to go to the cemetery." What a great way to view your theological education! And I think that they had this joke because seminary is an intense place and in a way this saying held a lot of truth for them. Ironically, and surprisingly, this joke or play on words ended up ringing much more true for me than I ever would have expected. This is because I can honestly say that I have never felt so lost, in such a dark place spiritually, or so far away from...

Eighteenth Sunday after the Pentecost Sermon – 8:00 & 10:30 Text: Jeremiah 29:1,4-7, Psalm 66:1-11, 2 Timothy 8:8-15, Luke 17:11-19 Fr. Robert P. Travis Well it's 10/10/10 today a fact of which many of you are aware. What is the significance? Well, not much, as far as I'm concerned, though it is neat that this only happens every hundred years. I read somewhere that many churches have noticed, that this happening on a Sunday will not happen for another 400 years, so they took that as a sign to preach on the Ten Commandments. We are bound, thankfully, to a lectionary, so the odd date having spiritual significance is not present in our readings today. Or is it. . . More significant to me, in preparing to preach to you all today was the fact that we are thinking about Stewardship now, in fact, some people have already turned in pledge cards for 2011, though we're not asking you to do that, until November 7th, when we will present our pledges on the altar. That fact made...

Copies of Amy Morehouses' sermon from 10/3 are available from her on request. Email requests to deaconamy@knoxvilleascension.org .

The Rev. Robert P. Travis Eighteenth Sunday after the Pentecost – 8:00 & 10:30 RCL Proper 21 Year C 9/26/2010 1.Text: Jeremiah 32:1-3a,6-15, Psalm 91:1-6,14-16, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31 I was going through my old sermons and I discovered that the very first sermon I wrote in Seminary, was on this same Gospel pericope we heard today. I read through that sermon and found some good parts for today. But a great deal of the text was disappointing to me, because it showed me how immature I was then, and especially that I had a sort of chip on my shoulder about wealthy people. I was fresh out of my experience as a youth minister at an Episcopal Church on the Northshore of Long Island, commonly called the Gold Coast of Long Island. Some of the wealthiest people in the world live in that town. You couldn't buy a house, not even a shack, for less than $600,000. Parents would commonly buy $80,000 Lexuses for their children when they turned 16. And yet, at the Episcopal Church wher...

Proper 20 Year C Luke 16:1-13 Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost September 19th, 2010 Written by Fr. Brett Backus Delivered at 8am by Fr. Brett, at 10:30am by Fr. Rob Giving Ourselves to God “For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Today's message is about Christian living. It is about our very real need as Christians to struggle constantly with the giving over of ourselves to Christ in order to make room for God in our hearts. You know, one of my favorite things about taking people on mission trips is being provided with the opportunity to witness the people we have taken grow before our very eyes. Being able to provide people with life altering experiences and having the chance to see how each individual responds to challenges and changes as a result of the various challenges that come along with mission work is both a blessing and a privilege. One of my favorite challenges, which presented itself on b...

Given at 8am Service Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost Proper 19C September 12, 2010 (Rally Day) Luke 15:1-10 Fr. Rob Travis How many of you have ever lost a sheep? I know I haven't, so it's kind of hard for me to appreciate the joy that a shepherd would have, if he went in search of a lost sheep and found it. But the losing money thing, and finding it, that makes sense to me, as long as I realize that a silver coin, back then, was worth a lot more than a simple quarter today. The most common silver coin was the denarius, which was what was typically paid for a day's wage. So let's say you lost a $100 bill. I would certainly spend a while searching for that, and be pretty thrilled if I found it. Or let’s take a more recent example, say you lost a whole lot of money in the stock market your retirement savings, wouldn’t you go about doing everything you could, to try to get that money back? You might even neglect some things that need your attention in order to get back wh...

Proper 18 Year C Luke 14:25-33 The Cost of Discipleship The Rev. Brett P. Backus “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Today's message is about the cost of discipleship. It is about learning to let go of all we love in order to truly grasp Christ. So, I had a very hard time preparing today's sermon, a harder time than normal actually. I spent the majority of this week racking my brains as to how to begin this sermon, torturing my poor pregnant wife by using her as a sounding board for my ideas, staring at my computer until my brain went numb, and roaming the halls of the church desperately trying to trick someone else into thinking it was their Sunday to preach (it almost worked on Deacon Amy, by the way). Then, in desperation, and because I could no longer stand the site of my office, I somehow found my way up to our labyrinth sometime late Thursday afternoon. It was there, walking the labyrinth, that I unexpectedl...

Proper 17 Year C Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16, Luke 14:1,7-14 Fr. Robert P. Travis Sermon Text: How many of you know the name Karl Barth? You may have heard of him, or you may not have, as he is one of the most famous theologians of the 20th Century. He was a pastor, preacher and teacher from Switzerland, who also taught at the most highly regarded German Universities. He lectured in this country at Princeton, and the University of Chicago. The majority of Barth’s life was spent teaching and writing, with some public lecturing and preaching. His major writings include the commentary on Romans, [and] Church Dogmatics (a multi–volume systematic theology of nearly seventy–five hundred pages...” (Douglas, J. D., Comfort, P. W., & Mitchell, D. (1997, c1992). Who's who in Christian history. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House.) But in the last decade before he retired, he also spent time preaching in his local prison. I guess you could say he wanted a captive audience. I'm going to tell you a s...