Ascension Written Sermons

From a Distance Rob Gieselmann, Pent. 16A-17, August 27, 2017 I’m wondering this morning, what was your experience of the eclipse? When the upstart moon could no longer tolerate its second-tier position to the sun – that moon jumped head-long in front of the sun, blocking fire and light and all means of convention.             What was your experience? Were you with friends?    Were you among those who traveled to Grace Point, to eat a covered-dish lunch, and then lie on your back along the grassy peninsula? Maybe you invited your wife to join you on your fishing boat, in the middle of Ft. Loudon Lake, anchored to a pier, with an osprey nest directly overhead? The osprey cackled epithets at you – that is, until the light went dark and the birds and fish and boats with noisy motors, were quelled into silence… The Lord is in his holy Temple, Let all the earth keep silence before him. Emily Vreeland t...

The Reverend Christopher Hogin The Meaning in Our Suffering: Genesis 45: 1-15 The Episcopal Church of the Ascension August 20, 2017 I’ve read about Joseph and his coat of many colors for years. It was taught to me in Sunday school. I’ve even seen the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I don’t know about you, but when I read about Joseph in Genesis, I can’t help but picture Donny Osmond gyrating across the stage singing, Close Every Door . When you stop and think about it, this story is horrific. Joseph, a young boy, is sent by his father to check on his brothers. His brothers, consumed by hatred and jealousy, conspire to kill him, but don’t because he’s worth more alive and dead. They bind him up, throw him in a pit, and sell him as a slave for 20 shekels. (And you thought your family was dysfunctional.) Joseph loses everything: his family, his homeland, his freedom, and dignity. All this happens through the betrayal of his own ...

The Feast of The Transfiguration Luke 9:28-36 August 6, 2017 The True Self             So, I was looking back this week on some old sermons that I had preached in the past, because right when I read our Gospel lesson for this morning, I knew that I had preached on this text before.   Sure enough, after looking, I found that actually I’ve preached on this text four or five times in the past few years.   That’s ok, because this is one of my favorite pieces of scripture, but I also realized that I’ve only ever preached on this text for the last Sunday of Epiphany, the Sunday right before Ash Wednesday, which is obviously not today.   No, today we don’t hear this scripture as a part of the liturgical timeline as we usually do, but we celebrate the actual event of the Transfiguration today because August 6th is the Feast of the Transfiguration.   It is set as a Holy Day in our liturgical calendar and so we ...