What scares you? Some folks don’t like horror movies. The part that always gets me is when it gets to the part in movie where a character is in the dark empty house and then the background music goes away and you know that something bad is going to happen. Someone or something is going to leap out of a doorway or something—there will be some loud noise. Even though I can tell it is coming, I always jump anyway. Some folks are afraid of roller coasters. I always regret getting on one as soon as the roller coaster begins to move. You start to move slowly up that first big hill, and then you hear the people in the front begin to scream and then you reach the crest of the hill and look down, straight down and you realize you are going to die and you think, “Why did I do this?” And then some folks are afraid of public speaking. They stand up, and their knees begin to shake, their hands get clammy, their stomach knots up, their throat tightens and their mouths get dry and the worst of all, the mind goes blank.
But you know, I think the parable we heard today is more frightening than any of those things. The parable that Jesus tells today in the gospel is the 3rd in a row he has told his disciples and the crowds about the end times. And frankly all of them are intended to serve as a warning. The first parable is the one dealing with the 5 foolish and the 5 wise maidens. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 20 November, 2011/The Rev. Lance Wallace’ »

This (a New Testament with a metal cover that says: May this keep you from harm) is something carried by one of my heroes. He wasn’t always a hero – it was not until later in life that I recognized what a hero he was.

Who is your hero? This question was raised for me at All Saints’ by Bishop Martins in his sermon when he was talking about the saints as heroes of the church.

As a little kid I had a number of heroes. There was Superman – remember the motto: Truth, justice and the American way?

There was the Lone Ranger, remember? A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver! The Lone Ranger! … With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States! Nowhere in the pages of History can one find a greater champion of justice! Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear! Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 13 November, 2011/The Rev. Richard C. Marsden’ »

I think it was some time back in the early 60s when the new indoor shopping mall opened in my home town of Columbus, Ohio. All of the big department stores had opened branch stores at the mall, and of course people wondered if the new mall would hurt business downtown, which of course it did. One of the new features of the mall was that all of the stores would be open seven days a week. I remember my family being upset that the sacredness of Sunday was being violated. The churches in town all encouraged their members to do their shopping Monday through Saturday, that Sundays might continue to belong to the Lord. Our family followed that practice, along with many others, for a while; but eventually convenience won out, and before long it was no longer an issue.

I didn’t realize it when it occurred, but it was at that time, the time when the shops started staying open on Sunday, that the society in which I lived was becoming totally secularized. Up until that time the outward appearance of modern life didn’t openly conflict with the teachings of the Church. Television shows were suitable for all ages, often teaching some kind of moral; the style of dress was modest; public schools unashamedly talked about religion and placed value on beginning the day with prayer and often even the reading of scripture. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 6 November, 2011 – The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »

Now, I am not much of a boxer. The two times I was coerced into the ring as a kid turned into an unmitigated brawl – I fought, not boxed.

But the YMCA we used to go to as kids had guys who were boxers. They were tough graceful, agile, quick. As the boxers sparred they had to be defensive and ward off the other’s attack at the same time be positioning themselves and probing for their opponent’s weakness looking for the knock-out.

It was a graceful and strategic dance they did; I never got that. But the pros did. Most of us remember the best: Cassius Marcellus Clay, otherwise known as Muhammad Ali. He had style, agility, and grace, and he was strategically deadly. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 23 October, 2011/ The Rev. Richard Marsden’ »

Last week I attended the Anglo-Catholic Rectors’ Conference, which was held this year in Raleigh, North Carolina. I wore my clericals to and from the conference, and on the way back, going through security, one of the guards asked me a question since he could tell I was a priest. He asked, “What does it mean, ‘Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s?’”

Of all the things he could have asked me, I was amazed that that was the question, since that is the Gospel appointed for today, and I had been thinking about it in preparing for my sermon today. I didn’t give him the whole sermon, just a very short version of it, but I’m going to give you the whole enchilada! Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 16 October, 2011/ The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »

“Fall flat on his face,” “a man after his own heart,” “pride goes before a fall,” like a lamb to the slaughter,” “sour grapes,” “the salt of the earth,” “give up the ghost,” “the powers that be,” “a thorn in the flesh.” What do these well-known phrases, phrases known by Christians and non-Christians alike, have in common? They are all phrases that have their origin in the King James Bible. They are just a few examples of so many phrases that come from this great source, the 400th anniversary of the publication of which we are celebrating today. While there are very few churches in the English speaking world that still use the King James Bible for reading scripture in worship, it is the version of the Bible that was read, both publicly and privately, until a little over 50 years ago by all non-Roman Catholic Christians since its publication in 1611.
The King James Bible is called that because King James I authorized a new translation of the Bible as one of the first things he did as the new King of England after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. At that time, Henry VIII had been dead only a little more than fifty years, and the Church in England had been separated from Rome for even less than that amount of time. Continue reading ‘Sermon – 9 October, 2011/The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »

Do you love surprise endings? Do you remember the Ransom of Red Chief? The little boy gets kidnapped and what you expect doesn’t happen at all because at the end of the story, the kidnappers ended paying the dad to take his own little boy back. Or how about The Sixth Sense? Do you remember that movie? The boy that said he could see dead people? I won’t tell you how that ends, but the ending is very surprising, a little shocking even. Then Usual Suspects also has a great surprise ending. There is a different kind of “gotcha” at the end of that story isn’t there?

That is what happens in the parable that Jesus tells in today’s gospel. He has the chief priests and elders along with a crowd that has his disciples and lots of pilgrims and people from Jerusalem all around him. Jesus has just made the chief priests and elders look pretty bad. We talked about the parable of the two sons last week. As soon as he finishes Jesus says, “Listen to another parable.” And because of the power of his personality, his personal magnetism, everyone is drawn into the story. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 2nd October, 2011/the Rev. Lance Wallace’ »

Do you remember Eddie Haskell? For those of you who don’t, he was a character in “Leave it to Beaver,” a popular T.V. show when I was a kid back in the Middle Ages! Eddie was the one who always told the adults what he thought they wanted to hear, in the most saccharine way possible, promising always to be the model boy. Then, as soon as he thought the adults were out of earshot, he would plot to do whatever it was he had promised not to do. His pranks were usually rather harmless, but they always ended up getting Wally and the Beaver into trouble.

Eddie Haskell is the perfect example of hypocrisy—saying one thing and doing another. Of all of the vices of humanity, Jesus comes down the hardest on hypocrisy. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 25 September, 2011/The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »

Bill Gates is credited with saying to a group of graduating seniors, “Life isn’t fair; get used to it.” And there is certainly some truth in that statement. What is your response to this parable? It doesn’t matter whether you even affirm that life isn’t fair-get used to it; it doesn’t seem right. You have the fellow who works for one hour and he gets as much as the fellow who has worked over ten hours. Where is the justice or the fairness in that? How can Jesus be telling us that the kingdom of heaven is like this? Is this what God is really like? Is ‘Life isn’t fair; get used to it’ one of the messages that Jesus is trying to teach us in this parable?
Fred Sieger of our Saturday 5:30 service likes to point out to me on a regular basis the truth of location, location, location—he is a real estate agent. He has shown me that even a shabby looking relatively small house can be worth over a million dollars if it is in the right location (for example, on Siesta Key overlooking the Gulf of Mexico). In the Bible it is the same principle, but we call it context, context, context. Continue reading ‘Sermon – 18 September, 2011/The Rev. Lance Wallace’ »

This is the tenth anniversary of the attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. by Muslim terrorists, a day that every adult and older teenager remembers. Each one of us has etched in his or her memory the pictures all of us saw on television that day, and since that day life has been very different as a result of those attacks, not only for people in the United States, but also for many people throughout the world. The United States is engaged in three wars: in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a war on terror in general. Our economy has been greatly affected. And the process of getting through an airport in most places in the world is a far different experience since 9/11.

We have been hearing and reading stories all last week from people who were in New York City or Washington D.C on 9/11. One person here in our parish, who lived in New York City at the time of the attacks, shared some of his thoughts with me, and I’d like to share them with you. “Obviously being a New Yorker I grew up with the beautiful Manhattan skyline my entire life,” he said. “All I had to do was walk one block up a small hill to see the entire city. The understanding of the New York skyline for a native New Yorker is that it is a natural wonder, like the Colorado Rockies, or Niagara Falls. The skyline of Manhattan only grows; it never shrinks. On 9/11 all of that changed. For months we New Yorkers woke up to the smell of burning rubble, fighter jets flying over our air space, and the sight of lower Manhattan smoldering, and also the constant funerals, wakes, and memorial services.” These are some of the thoughts of Chris Wood, our Youth Minister. Sometimes we forget that Chris grew up in New York City, until he opens his mouth and speaks, that is! Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 11 September, 2011/The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »