Sermon for Pentecost 18 (23C) Holy Spirit, Vashon October 9, 2022 Luke 17:11-19 – The Ten Lepers, Gratitude The story of the ten lepers that we have just heard could be used in a number of ways: it could be a parable about the relations of Jews and Samaritans; or the marginalization of people suffering from a dreaded disease and the punitive nature of the laws regarding untouchable peoples; it could be used to talk about Jesus’ willingness to bend the purity laws in favor of compassion for the outcast; or it could be about this progression of his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem and the mounting evidence of his identity as the Christ. But this little story is primarily about one thing – Gratitude. That’s right – Gratitude. I could easily fill a sermon with stories or famous quotes about gratitude, and how important it is, and maybe that…

Proper 17C August 28, 2022 Holy Spirit Vashon Jeremiah 2.4-13 Ps 81.1, 10-16 Hebrews 13.1-8, 15-16 Luke 14.1, 7-14 Earlier this summer I attended the memorial service for the mother of someone in the congregation. I had never met her, but I am a big believer in attending the funerals anyway. At the reception, as folks were browsing the table of photos and mementos, I picked up a copy of the 1922 edition of Emily Post’s book http://Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home. I sat down and started to thumb through this book, now 100 years old, and my mouth began to drop open. There are chapters such as: Salutations of Courtesy, The Clothes of a Gentleman, The Débutante, and One’s Position in the Community. You can find the http://entire book online and it’s a fascinating way to waste some time! So much of the overall “flavor”…

August 21, 2022 Holy Spirit Vashon Jeremiah 1.4-10 Ps 71.1-6 Hebrews 12.18-29 Luke 13.10-17 As I was beginning to think about a sermon for today and reading the lessons, I also read the Collect which you heard just a few minutes ago. “Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit…” Church unity isn’t always our best thing, whether it’s Christians as a whole, Anglicans or Episcopalians. Ever since St. Peter was given the keys to the kingdom we’ve been busily disagreeing on large and small points so that now there are something like 20,000 “denominations” calling themselves Christians around the world. The Episcopal Church is one of the “schismatic” churches as we famously separated from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation. At that point it was the Church of England. In the ensuing years, it has spread around the globe, due…

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (15C) Holy Spirit Vashon August 14, 2022 The Rev. Jeffrey Gill Luke 12:49-56 There are certain passages in the Bible that every preacher dreads having to preach on. Today’s gospel reading is one of them! “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth No, I tell you, but rather division!” How is it that the Prince of Peace would speak such things? And it goes on: “they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” What kind of family values is that?! And furthermore, what kind of prescription is…

Proper 14, Year C-2022                                                    August 7, 2022 The Reverend Martin Yabroff (based on my sermons at St. Andrew’s in 2013 & 2019)   “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”   Faith appreciates the present and looks ahead to what is coming – that is its nature. Faith raises children, helping them to grow into who they will be, beyond where they are now.  Faith builds marriages and relationships, beyond their trials and stumbles, into what is deeper and more meaningful.  Faith sustains churches like Holy Spirit with vitality and enables them to go on.  Faith is how we navigate new chapters and maturing years, grounded in what has been before and is now and eager to discover what is to come and be discovered. Sometimes we may think that what we can see is all there is – that is…

Proper 13, Year C-2022                                        July 31, 2022 Preacher:  The Reverend Martin Yabroff (based on my sermons of Proper 13, 2013 & 2019) (quotations from Elisabeth Johnson’s 2019 commentary on the gospel at www.WorkingPreacher.org )  Opening Prayer:   Open our ears, O Lord, that we may hear the words you have for us this morning.  And open our hearts to receive the grace by which you have brought us here together for reasons we may not yet fully understand . . . So what are we doing here together today?  Why has God brought us together – this unusual grouping of folks – at this place and time? I am not usually here.  I retired last Fall from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Tacoma, have enjoyed serving at Holy Spirit several times this Spring and Summer. In August we move back to California to begin our next chapter of family life and…