Episcopal Church Of The Redeemer Podcaster

Having a spiritual experience can happen in a split second.And trust me, you'll know when you see it, when you feel it. It is essential inunderstanding this dilemma that we remember who Paul is speaking to. The churchin Rome, a complicated convergence of two vastly different cultural communitiesbound together by a common spiritual experience. To ov…

There are days when we feel as if we are connected to Godand clear about who we are, our place in the world, and what the world isdoing, and what God is doing in the world. Where we not only are in the light,but we feel like we are the light. And then there are days when weare darkness, where we cannot see God's presence, where we do not feel likeb…

...the reality is, is that God shows up through Christand the Spirit to show us that we are a blessing. He has come to heal us and toreconcile us, and for us to then go and share that hope with the world becauseGod is with us where we are presently and where we are moving forward. But howis that possible? Well, that's where Romans 5 enters in. Befo…

If when you see God coming down the lane, you say, herecomes blessing, here comes love. My heart is filled. I can't wait to find outhow I'm loved. That is good and healthy relationship, and you don't have to bereligious to get this because again, you know this in your real friendships andrelationships in your life, you know the people that when the…

Today in Paul's letter to the Romans, we are presented withtwo diametrically opposed realities of human life as we know it. On one side,we have sin brought about by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; the wanting tobe like God, knowing good and evil. And we hear that this way brings death. And on the other side, we have Jesus, the pioneer andperfec…

Have you ever felt like someone saw you for who you reallywere? How beautiful that is to feel that when someone really knows you and seesyour glory, It's overwhelming and beautiful, isn't it? But there's adifference, of course, between Superman and Jesus. And it's not just that Jesusisn't a superhero, he's, you know, our Lord and Savior. It's not j…

I searched, can the ocean ever run out of salt? It seemslike a ridiculous question or maybe just a rhetorical one. Can the ocean everrun out of salt? What an absurd thing to wonder. I always get this way in thedead of winter, the frozen Midwest tundra seems to elicit feelings ofhelplessness and heartache for me. Jesus' words of firing synapse of th…

I showed up to my piano lesson one day, and my teacher couldtell that I was really frustrated. She'd been working with me since I was nine and she could tell that I was very frustrated. She asked, what's wrong? I said, I'll tell you what's wrong. I'm listening to GlenGould play this invention and I can't play it like that. And she said, Phil,he's o…

He comes in and sits down across the desk from me and hesays, hey, I have got this great plan for your life. I know exactly what youshould be doing from now on. I've got it all worked out. And guess what? Youdon't have to worry about the direction of your life anymore. So come on, let'sgo. So of course, I get up and I grab my coat and off we go. It…

One of the most amazing things about crushes is how it'sbetter off if you don't get to know them at all. As long as someone remainssort of a mystery and out there in the beyond, you can idealize them. You canthink all sorts of things. They can be all sorts of things for you. Maybethey've just been just attractive enough to catch your eye and maybe …

Every year, every month, every moment is an opportunity tobe born again. Every time we show up, every time we resist evil, when we repentand return. Every time we proclaim the Gospel and seek and serve and love. Everytime we strive to be and help others see God's dream for humanity, this is howwe live a baptized life. Those of us who are already ba…

And I'm standing here today because of this place. It's very significant, but ultimately because of you, the people. The story today of the naming is a very important story about names and Jesus's name, and there's so much to unpack and what his name means. There's so much to unpack about Jesus' life and how this marks the beginning of a new kingdo…

We have this idea of how God should save us. We as a people,we pray for salvation, and on tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus, which wesay is the salvation of the world. The people who are begging for salvation inJesus' story, they're not talking about wanting to go to the right place whenthey die. They are hoping that the place where they live…

...maybe one of the most frustrating things for me about God, and I mean genuinely something I really get frustrated with God about is that God's existence and presence is always deniable if you want it to be. It is a matter of faith. God shows up in Jesus Christ and you can look at Jesus and go, nah, I don't buy it. You can have a moment of deep a…

Paul believes that the Messiah did not just show up to bringjustice to Israel, but in fact to the whole world, to every single person andall the inhabitants and all of the creation. God has brought justice throughJesus. This creates tension, not because Paul's Jewish siblings arebad, but because they're human and humans, we don't like change. We do…

Maybe some of you have relationships that are troubling if we're ever going to encounter them. It can be over the holidays. Maybe Some of us have situations in that we're just stuck. We just don't know where to go. And I think in those situations we can become something akin to sleepwalking. We just go through it. We just show up, but we're not awa…

Are we capable of forgetting the things that have harmed us? Honestly, if we're being real? No. So then we actually just go, well, forgiveness is this thing I'd like to be able to do, but it's not going to happen. And then Jesus, instead of being a person, we're meant to follow down the way of love. Jesus just becomes some religious superhero that …

That's the most interesting thing to so many people aboutchildren, the promise of what will be. I hear people who think they're wellintentioned say, oh, the children are the future of the church. No, they're thepresent of the church. They're not the future. They're here right now. They'renot our future. They're the present. But we have this tendenc…

Our narrow views limit us, imprison us. When we allow ourselvesopen to God's view, we can see each other's humanity. We can respond in loveand open to the possibility of God's healing grace, for all. Undoubtedly, manyof us have strong feelings about what's going on in our world today. At this time nearing elections, political rhetoric isfierce. Wor…

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted inthemselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt. I'dalways thought of this story as how we approach. Do we stand before God proudof ourselves? Or do we stand before God humbly asking for mercy? And that ispart of the story, but I'm reminded today when I hear it that Jesus felt then…

Food, as it turns out, is one of those things that oftenelicits prayer between strangers and friends. And aside from praying some short prescriptiveverses over meals at dinner parties, I can't think of many times when my friendand I prayed together and realized that we were praying. But several years into our friendship when they came to stayfor th…

Phil got roped into being a line judge This was very funnyuntil I saw the picture of myself and said, Is that how I look? Can someoneplease delete this picture? And you all, I don't mind saying that to youbecause I don't know a person I've ever met who is happy with every picture ofthemselves. And by the way, the pictures that we don't like of ours…

Can any of us not relate to that idea of wanting more? I think our culture is almost built on this idea of more, we want more skill, we want more knowledge, we want more experience. We want more time. We want more to be more prepared. There's that more, again. Phil talked a bit last week about our desire for more security, more accomplishment, more…

We want to be okay. We want to know that we are taken careof. We want to enjoy life, but also our pursuit of that can sometimes make usforget about the people around us. And if we make the pursuit of wealth and thepursuit of power and the pursuit of luxury, if we make that the center of ourlives, then its Hades and torment coming our way, plain and…

One of the films though actually turned out to be a lot like our Gospel lesson for today. Spoiler alert, it wasn't the one where the woman loses her voice and needs to kiss a prince to get it back. The story I'm thinking of is the story of a shrewd little fox who befriends the poor, the orphan, and the widows, while their coins are collected for ta…

We think of our relationship with God in an arbitrary way. We say, God is mysterious and yes, God is mysterious. But we act like the whole thing is completely up for grabs and we think, I just hope that I have done enough good. That when God sees me, my credit score will allow me into heaven, and hopefully, I haven't accrued so much bad behavior, s…

...Our minds start processing cost. We start processing costsin our decisions, and we're recognizing at times when the cost may be rising oralready too high. But lots of times we need to make cost assessments in orderto move forward. We all face choices throughout our daily lives. And even themost positive choices have a cost to them. We may decide…

In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus invites us to a dinner party that probably looked sort of similar to that. Spices piled high, colors and rosewater tea, spiced meats and heaping piles of baklava. We're invited to imagine ourselves there. In the first part of the lesson, as a guest. And in the second half, as the host. In each instance Jesus gi…

I think one of the real true disservices most Christianshave done to the faith is not taken the Sabbath day seriously. We use these verses like this, 'well, peopleused to not have to do anything on the Sabbath, but then Jesus showed up anddid some healing on the Sabbath and now I can take my kids to soccer and dolaundry and get the shopping done.' …

The little curb led me up to the giant front doors. They hadhuge iron handles that signified to me, strength. I reached for them. I wasbegging to be let in, but the doors of the church were locked. I tugged harder,but they wouldn't budge in complete defeat I collapsed to the ground feelingbeneath me, what I felt inside that day, dust. Where are you…

I had no rug in the living room and I finally found one that I thought was beautiful and I justified it because I was thinking, I'll give this to my granddaughter when I die. You know, she'll love this rug, right? She'll probably put it in a garage sale, but anyway, that was my justification. That rug was in my living room less than a week when my …

You've heard me talk about this before, I 100% do play thelottery and I 100% think that the lottery is a total disaster. And it's nothealthy. It's not a moral system. And, I completely play it. And the whole timeI'm thinking about all the good that I will do. There will be enough money leftover for a little remodel of the house, but I've got a lot …

We were walking past one of the glorious churches in NewYork City and on impulse, I wanted to go in and offer a prayer for my friend'sgrandmother. So, we stopped, and I did, and I can still remember the dimlighting, the coolness of the space, and the comfort and kneeling in prayer.Very soon after that, we learned that something had gone terribly wr…

Substitute Samaritan with another identity that gives us abetter sense of how these words might have sounded to those who heard them inthe earliest years. If we substitute that, we also have the chance tosubstitute who it is that's been injured. Is it a stranger? Is it someone whowe'd never encountered before? Or might we be the one who was injured…

In case it's been a little while, since you were in mathclass, remember that geometry is the study of shapes and forms. Some simple andsome very complex, some flat and some multidimensional. And calculus on theother side is the study of the rate of change made complicated by instantaneousrates that lead to integral movements toward an infinite answ…

In the Bible in Daniel, Jobs, Zacharia, Chronicles, Isaiah, Proverbs, Psalms, all over the place, they talk about God as a refiner, purifying, cleansing, and making things new. But to be transformed, to change, you have to be willing to let go of your footprints to let them fade here, so you can make new ones there. Or maybe let go of the beautiful…

The drowning of the pigs is not good news to everyone, as itturns out, it is certainly not good news to the swine herders, the farmers whoowned these pigs, the people whose economic livelihood depended on thesecreatures of God that they have come to possess. This upheaval and subversionof the system is not welcomed by these and not welcomed by thos…

The message of the Holy Spirit was being sent to all. It was accessible to all because God is seeking a relationship with all. Today is called Trinity Sunday and it celebrates the three expressions of the Trinity that we address in our prayers throughout our services, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.Our tradition has tended to be steeped in masculine …

All of a sudden, the disciples are speaking. All thedisciples, by the way. Their first language is probably Hebrew or Aramaic,which is a dialect of Hebrew. And instead of speaking the Gospel in their ownlanguage, they're now speaking the language in whatever language, the peoplearound them speak. The first thing the Holy Spirit does to make people …

Every morning at my son's Montessori school in theCincinnati public school district, they take two minutes to center themselvesto begin a new day. A chance to embrace their school motto, peace, love, andPRM. Every child is given the opportunity to pray in their own way at school andno one is excluded from this time of daily reflection, I decided to…

What kind of Christians are we? Throughout Easter we've been focusing on these readings from the Book of Acts. We've been preaching from that space and we've been listening to these stories of the early church and the first believers and how they became the church. And it's been a little bit uncomfortable for us, Episcopalians, because we're hearin…

This sheet comes down. Peter sees all these animals that he's supposed to stay away from. And the voice from above from God says, Peter kill and eat. And Peter says, no, absolutely not. He thinks, you're testing me. I know this one. I don't get to eat those things. Three times this happened. And three times Peter says, no, I know the rules. And God…

...we now hear of another potential crisisand the overturning of protection for women's autonomy, and their health andreproductive decisions. There is a temptation for us to stand back becausethere are simply too many crises. There are too many things that seem to befalling apart and we may choose to stand back, particularly if we don't feelthat we…

I don't have a great story where Jesus knocked me down andblinded me and then said, get your act together, DeVaul. That didn't happen.But this Sunday, this year, I'm out there, I'm watching those folks and I'mstanding with some of you and we're ringing bells and we're cheering people on.And I see the truth. It's not like, 'oh, this is a good thing,…

So many folks are feeling isolated, lonely, even despair. Many are finding that the comfort they once might have found in a faith tradition, no longer works for them in the complexity, and with which they understand life today. So many are feeling threatened by actions being taken to curtail their rights, their freedoms. And so many are experiencin…

I'm a very cynical person. You don't know that. Cause I getup here and talk about love, which I believe in. But the power of love issomething that has overcome me and has to fight daily with my cynicism. So forinstance, you know, you'll meet people who have kids, or maybe they're ateacher that teaches and they go like, man, those kids teach me more…

What happened to Jesus is not far from us today. Innocentlives are lost in systems of domination and oppression again and again. Fearand mistrust breed, war and violence, and the impulse for domination andsupremacy keep us separated from one another and from God. The Passion of Jesus should not leave you today saying, oh,look at this terrible thing…

In today's Gospel Mary's devotion to Jesus is seen and felt by all present.In the story, Judas' devotion may be visible as well, but it is probably not a devotion of giving to the poor. It may be more to keeping the common purse and perhaps lining his own. So, how do we identify with this story? To what and whom are we devoted and how do we express…

The Gospel today is drawing us back to one another and we know it, we know it. This is why our overwhelming sense, When we hear this story, our overwhelming feeling is of the magnificent love that runs towards us, even when we're not sure who we are and the beauty and the power of the story is that even though the sons don't know, they belong, the …

The other morning, Igot into my nice dependable car, it's a Toyota, but it has leather seats. And Idrove to the grocery store and I hit zero potholes on Paxton avenue and Irolled the windows down and I played some Louie Armstrong on the radio and Ifilled my car with gas, and I didn't even calculate how many miles I'm getting tothe gallon these days…