Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church

Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Man of Sorrows by James B. Janknegt (used by permission)

Lent 2 2025
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Genesis 15:1-18, Psalm 27, Philippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Jesus is moving towards Jerusalem. It has been his destination in some sense for his whole life, but particularly since his encounter with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. Some Pharisees have come to him today, warning him that King Herod wants to kill him, and therefore he should alter his course. It’s odd to see the Pharisees in this role – perhaps they are moderate Pharisees, like Gamliel and Nicodemus. Perhaps they are merely trying to frighten and discouraged him, to shake his trust. Jesus is not swayed, however. His commitment to his mission, and his trust in his Father is absolute. He will finish his course, his “exodus.” Nothing will stop Jesus from walking the necessary path towards Jerusalem and the cross; nothing will divert the Son of God from what he has bound himself to on our behalf.

Abram has also trusted God. At this point in his story, it’s been decades since he left Ur of the Chaldees at the direction of God’s voice. Abram left his country and his father’s house in response to God’s command, “Go,” and God’s promise of blessing and prosperity. He went without asking any questions. Pushed out of the Negev by famine, Abram went down to Egypt. He prospered there and left Egypt rich in cattle, silver, and gold. He then journeyed back to Bethel and gave Lot first choice of land to settle. Again, God commanded and promised, telling him, “Walk through the land and I will give it to you.” He responded obediently. Later, Abram rescued Lot, who had become a prisoner of war, and returning from victory, Abram gave Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, a tithe of all the men and goods he had captured. Melchizedek declared, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth” (Gen. 14:19). Abram seems bold, courageous, obedient, humble, and faithful in all he does.

But, there is a problem. Through all of this, he has trusted, and yet he has remained without the promised child who will grow into a nation. Up to this point, the biblical picture of God and Abram’s relationship has been fairly straightforward. God speaks; Abram listens. God promises; Abram believes. God commands: Abram obeys. We have now come to a point, however, when Abram finally says, “Wait a minute. I have a question...” At Abram’s age, time is precious. He must live with doubt and anxiety as constant companions. One of his slaves is set to inherit his wealth and belongings. This is not what was promised.

Trust. Faith. The Epistle to the Hebrews talks about such things as “evidence of things not seen.” When it comes to trust, to faith, it is human nature to want some proof. Seeing is believing. “Trust but verify” is the old Russian proverb that Ronald Reagan used so effectively in the nuclear disarmament talks of the 1980s. Even our father Abram has come to the point in his story where, despite his blessings and how it’s gone so far, he needs verification that God is still on his side. What saves him in this moment is where he looks- to God, and not to other things.

We are often in the same place as Abram, but we can make the wrong move in response. Coming to a place of uncertainty is our lives, we can actually “double-down” on our lives, our plans- looking to them rather than to God. We rely on stuff- pension plans and jobs to make us secure. On food and entertainment to make us happy. Our ethnic identity- St Patrick’s day is tomorrow, remember- our families, or beliefs and thought leaders to make us feel secure. We are all given to what Paul repeatedly calls earthly mindedness. We do not find our security in Christ and his body called the church, but rather in earthly sources. As priest and theologian Jane Williams writes:

Paul urges his readers [that] we too have to trust in the bigger promise. Paul is utterly scornful about those who put their trust in ‘earthly things,’ but if we are to be as honest as Abram, we will have to admit how much of our security lies here on earth.

Even in Lent, where we try and reorient our lives to make room for God, we can make our disciplines the focus of our days. The keeping of a Lenten practice can obscure the “why” of having a Lenten practice in the first place. As priest and author Tish Harrison Warren reminds us:

Christian discipleship is a lifetime training in learning to pay attention to the right things.

Learning to pay attention to the right things. Abram turns to God with his doubts, not to himself or his possessions. He asks God in increase his faith and trust in the promise, he doesn’t seek it amidst the things of this world. In response, God s...

Rev. Lindsay Mizell

Christ on the Cross with Mary and St John by Rogier Van Der Weyden
(1457-1464)

Good Friday 2025
Rev. Lindsay Mizell

I’m Lindsay Mizell and the pastor at Vineyard Springbrook and since the beginning of Saint Brendan’s, you all have invited us to be part of your Good Friday and we’re grateful for your patience with us when we don’t know your rhythms and customs is kind and gracious.

Father Doug and Peter and Ash and I all are in book club. Not the same book club. They have a book club that is of elite intelligence, and I have a book club that tells too many jokes. But luckily, we’re on the other side of a wall and we can hear Doug laughing the whole time, which is the gift of every Thursday morning to all of us.

A year or two ago, in my book club, we read a book that that no one really liked and was my favorite one that we’ve ever read. We came every week, and everyone hated it. I came every week so excited because I loved it so much. The book is called “The Sound of Life’s Unspeakable Beauty.” It had me at the title. The book it was written by a German luthier, so a violin maker.

The book is about the progress of of him making a violin and then he talks about the things of God all throughout it. We begin the book and he’s in the woods. He’s in a forest picking out the perfect tree that he’ll cut down the tree that would become this violin. And he’s he’s a master luthier. People are waiting years and years and years, the best violinists in the world; waiting on these instruments. We find him in the middle of the forest, and he’s cutting down this tree and we follow him through the whole process. Finally, we get to this finished violin being played by a master. And all the while as he’s telling us the process, he’s riding about his thoughts on God and life and how these things intersect.

It becomes this lovely journey through a man’s creation and also his theology. I think about this book all the time, like constantly, it is it is my Roman Empire. There is a time, though, when he gets the point where the violin is made, but before it’s made it, it’s only made for him for a little while. He calls it the closed sound of the violin. During this time, he’s the only one to hear it sound. And in the chapter when he’s talking about this this close sound, this this precious moment with this violin, just he and it, he speaks about suffering and God.

He begins his chapter like this, “I once heard a wise Jewish saying that God has two chambers in his heart an outer and an inner. In the inner chamber, he hides his pain and weeping. Sometimes God lets us glimpse his inner heart, but he shrouds it in metaphors so that we can bear it. Sometimes God lets us glimpse his inner heart, but he shrouds it in metaphors so that we can bear it.”

I’ve certainly found this to be true of God that when God allows me a glimpse into his inner heart, into his pain and into his suffering, he covers it with image and metaphor so that I can bear it. I meet with a spiritual director and and he says often that if we were to allow ourselves to see the world as God does, to see the world through God’s eyes, then we would spend much time with every life breaking our heart, including our own. In most of my life, I only see God’s inner chamber of grief and loss through image and metaphor.

It’s in the loss that exists in creation when leaves fall off of trees, trees losing their leaves, waves, ocean waves when they come in and then they take everything they can out with them and and go away. The sun disappearing into the horizon. The groan of creation is very hard to miss and it points beyond itself to that inner chamber of God’s heart. I see it covered through songs and books and movies and art images that point beyond themselves to the inner chamber of God’s own heart.

In more tangible metaphors, like lost jobs and lost love and lost keys, which happens far too often in my own life, these real things, these real moments, and yet they point beyond themselves into that inner chamber of God. Much of my life with God and my own prayer practice lives in image and metaphor. It’s one of the ways that God operates through the entirety of the scripture. He’s often described as like a fire, or like a light, water, a rock, a tower, a breath, a mother bird, a mother bear. It makes me think of how when God comes to Moses, he comes in a cloud or in our Old Testament lesson that Peter read to us earlier an angel who speaks on behalf of God sharing his heart.

We humans require a shrouding or a covering, an image or metaphor clouds or angels, because the fullness of God’s presence is beyond what we can bear. If I’m honest with you, I think I can bear it. I think I can handle it. If I picture myself on Mount Sinai, God is coming down to give me, God is giving me the law. I just I don’t think I would need a cloud for him. I don’t think I would need a fire or ...

Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Washing of the Apostles’ Feet by Master of the Housebook (1475 and 1500)

Maundy Thursday
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Do you understand what I have done for you?
John 13:12b

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In Judaism, during the Passover Seder, there’s a section at the beginning known as The Four Questions. The most famous one being the one asked by the youngest child who is able: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” The four questions all have to do with the meal, at least on the surface. However, the answers point to how the meal brings to mind the time of the Exodus.

Holy Week is our Exodus. The Triduum (trid-you-um) or three great nights of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, our Passover. It’s fitting, therefore for us to have a question of our own. Jesus asks, “Do you understand what I have done for you?” We might also ask it this way: what do we receive tonight?

When Jesus gave the cup to his disciples, he said to them “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Our liturgy, drawing from a different text says, “ Drink this, all of you; for this is my Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins: Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.” The thing that is important for our purposes tonight is that word “covenant.” In Greek, it is diatheke, and if you look it up, the definition is perhaps more precise. It is a certain kind of covenant- one declaring a person’s wishes regarding the disposal of their property when they die. Like a Last Will and Testament. This is why the old King James Version says “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.”

Now, if this meal is Jesus’ Last Will and Testament, what do we receive? An inheritance- and what an inheritance it is. He bequeaths to us his life, his perfect submission to the Law, and his merits, for we are accounted as adopted daughters and sons.

The story is told of Paul Brand, a missionary doctor in India. When an epidemic of measles spread through the town where he lived, his daughter came down with a very bad case of it. Since he had no vaccine to treat her, Brand located a person who had recently recovered from measles. He drew blood from them and injected the plasma from their blood into his daughter. She was healed with blood that was borrowed from a person who had overcome the measles. We, too, are healed with borrowed blood. As Lutheran theologian and Pastor John Kleinig writes:

Full remission! That’s what Jesus provides for us by the blood he shed for us and now offers us in his Supper. He grants us full remission from the spiritual sickness of sin, the malignant cancer that infects us in our souls and bodies, for which there is no natural treatment or human remedy. The wages of sin—its outcome and cost—is always death (Rom 6:23). Jesus reverses this by giving us his blood to drink in his Supper. Through it we have the eternal remission of all our sin.

Free to live without condemnation, guilt or fear. That would be food enough. Yet, in this meal, we receive even more. In our Epistle tonight Paul asks us pointedly, “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16) It is not just that this meal grants us the inheritance of our remission from sins, it brings us into communion- a common union- with our Lord.

“Just as by melting two candles together you get one piece of wax,” St Cyril of Jerusalem writes, “ so, I think, one who receives the flesh and blood of Jesus is fused together with him. And the soul finds that he is in Christ and Christ is in him.”

In our eucharistic liturgy we pray for God to use the sacrament in this way, praying that we may “be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him.” God answers that prayer. As we take the Sacrament , what we eat is what we become- and that changes us gradually, from the inside out. We become more and more spiritually alive as we feed on Jesus. We draw our life from him as we remain in him and he remains in us. By the means of the bread and the wine we consume, we become his body. We grow up into him who is our head.

At the end of the dinner, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. He does this, per his own words, as a teacher- showing us just what kind of a body we are now. We receive clarity as to the nature of our identity as the Body of Christ. It involves giving ourselves away in love, just as our benefactor and our head, Jesus did.

After washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus says “I have given you an example – you should do just as I have done for you.”(John 13:15) Later, after the meal, he will be even more direct, saying:

I give you a new commandment: love one another; as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. If there ...

St. John the Baptist Preaching by Mattia Preti (1665)

Advent 3C 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Luke 3:7-20

They’ve come to see him. They’ve come to hear this voice crying in the wilderness.

Some have come to mock or to criticize. Some are spying on his words and actions. And some are desperate for the Word of the Lord. The sounding Word reverberates into the vast silence of the wilderness.

Israel has suffered...under the rule of Rome, under the rule of Herod. As they struggled and grieved through centuries of oppression, the voice of God was silent. Though the people had returned from exile in Babylon, they felt stuck in the wilderness.

I’ve spent many months in the wilderness. God seems to be silent. No word of hope or encouragement. Just waiting and watching and hope that God has not forsaken me.

Into this vast space of abandonment, a voice cries out. A voice of authority, a voice resounding God’s Word from on high, a voice crying “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” ^[1]

As we meet the crowds in the Gospel of Luke, at first, we’re taken aback. John the Baptist does not sound like a comforting voice. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”^[2] Standing alongside God’s desperate pilgrims are vipers: religious ones. They seek to crush the move of God or anything that might threaten their power.

Then the pilgrims cry out, “What are we to do?”

“Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” ^[3] This sounds a bit like Jesus in the “Sermon on the Mount.”

As we listen to John’s voice, we realize these people are outsiders, marginalized, those whom the city frowns upon. There are tax collectors. “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”^[4] Soldiers. “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages.” ^[5]

While John the Baptist is inviting them into the way of repentance, he is primarily pointing beyond himself to the One to Come. Even today, he is pointing beyond himself to the One to Come.

“I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” ^[6]

This sounds a little intimidating, and yet, Luke reminds us that “with many other exhortations John preached good news to the people.”^[7]

As I was rereading and reflecting on this Gospel text, I also reread “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. Each year, I encourage my students to read this Gospel-shaped story. In Stave Two, Scrooge comes face to face with his past. He realizes his own brokenness and bitterness.

In Stave Three, he sees a world rejoicing in the gift of Christmas. All through the story, Dickens weaves in Scriptural references and images. Scrooge longs to join in the joy he sees all around him. But these people cannot see or hear him. He is like a ghost. And he has lived his whole adult life like a ghost wandering isolated through the middle of humanity.

He wants to change. He wants to be the man who can truly repent and share his cloak with one in need. But first he must face his true condition. You must remember that when Scrooge meet the Ghost of Christmas Future, he expects to see himself in the future. He keeps looking for himself. Though the reader may realize that Scrooge is dead, Scrooge thinks he is still alive. He sees the way people disrespect the humanity of a dead man, but he does not realize that he is the dead man. When we come to the end of the scene, Scrooge sees his name on the tombstone, and he realizes that he is the dead man.

Scrooge must come face to face with his own hopelessness before he can discover the true gift of grace. This makes me think of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands if an Angry God.” Or Zephaniah’s opening salvo.

The book of the prophet Zephaniah opens with one of the most terrifying images in Scripture.

The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.

² “I will utterly sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.
³ “I will sweep away man and beast;
I will sweep away th...

Rev. Dr, Les Martin

Good Shepherd, Watanabe Sadao (1977)

Easter 4 – Good Shepherd Sunday
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, Luke 10:22-29

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:27

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

The book of Revelation is a kaleidoscope of images that keep changing and changing. The appearance of Jesus has also been changing: in chapters 1 through 4, we have Jesus the priest, teaching John and his 7 churches. In chapter 5, Jesus appears both as the Lion of Judah and the Lamb that was slain, the one who conquers by his own defeat. Today, in chapter 7, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, we hear that the Lamb is also the Shepherd of his people.

The idea of God as a shepherd was deeply embedded in the living faith of Israel, as seen in numerous Old Testament passages. It may be an unusual portrayal in our day and age, but it was electrifying for those who, after the resurrection, remembered how Jesus had spoken of himself: as a shepherd. For us, it is enough to remember that a shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. He leads them, and the sheep come out after him.

Another image looms large in our Revelation reading today: a gathering of people so vast that no one could possibly count it. Who are these people? Chapter 7, verse 4 has told us that 144,000 have come out from the tribes of Israel- eschatological Israel is much bigger. In John 10:16, Jesus had said that he had other sheep that he would bring into the fold, so that there would be one flock, one shepherd. Here, we see them: gathered from every nation and tribe and people and language, they retain their beautiful diversity but acknowledge only one allegiance. They have come out, leaving behind the identities and situations that once demanded their loyalty. No tribe, no country, no politics, or custom holds sway with them any longer, they answer only to the the voice of the Shepherd.

Where have these people come from? The elder answers John the Divine that ‘These are the ones who have come out of the great suffering.” We do well to take an expansive view of what this means. The 5th-century Archbishop Caesarius of Arles teaches us that:

These are not, as some think, only martyrs, but rather the whole people in the church. For it does not say that they washed their robes in their own blood but in the blood of the Lamb, that is, in the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. As it is written, “And the blood of his Son has cleansed us.

All who have gone through the valley of the shadow of death with only the Shepherd as their comfort are here. All who have found themselves at his table- but have also found it set in the midst of their enemies are here. Martyrs, yes, but also the the poor in spirit, the grieving, the meek, and those tired of corruption, those who are merciful in an ugly world, pure in a perverse world, peacemakers in a world of war, the persecuted, the insulted, those gossiped and lied about- all are here.

Why are they here? Because of the Lamb, who is their Shepherd. It is he who has called them out of the great suffering. The garments of their lives have been stained in the world of sin and death. The sin and death done unto them, done by them. Washed in the blood of the Lamb- washed in Baptism- they suffer no more and are now before the throne of God, serving him day and night in his temple as a kingdom of priests.

What are these people like now? The short answer is this: they are just fine. Having endured the valley of the shadow of death, now all that they have suffered is past. Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah:

You will say to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’
and to those who are in dark dungeons, ‘Emerge.’
They will graze beside the roads;
on all the slopes they will find pasture.
They will not be hungry or thirsty;
the sun’s oppressive heat will not beat down on them,
for one who has compassion on them will guide them;
he will lead them to springs of water. (Isaiah 49:9-10)

There is perhaps one final question we need to consider as we reflect on our Revelation reading today: What difference does it make for you and me? Or, more plainly, so what?

Let’s start with some Greek: the Greek word “ekklesia,” meaning church, is derived from two other Greek words “ek” (meaning “out”) and “kaleo” (meaning “to call”). The church, then, is “the called out ones.” The church is the sheep who are called out and led by the Shepherd.

One of the problems in looking at Revelation- as a result of how our culture reads it, I think- is that we see it solely in terms of the future. We can read this lesson and say “Oh, look what happens for those people. Good for them.” We forget, beloved, that those people we see in Revelation chapter 7 are the church – those people are us....