New Year's Eve Sermon: Circumcising our Heart Year-Round

This is a sermon preached at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, December 16, 2001, after a night at St. Paul's Chapel which functioned as a respite center for the 9/11 disaster recovery at 'Ground Zero' in New York City, after the terrorist attacks that caused the destruction of the World Trade Center and a mass casualty incident.

Insight Magazine of Council of World Mission, 2019

Advent is the period marked out by the four Sundays before Christmas where we prepare for the Lord's coming in to the arms of Mary and into the hearts of our lives and systems. CWM invites you to reflect through Advent on the steps we need to take to rise up for peace and justice. This is particularly important as CWM looks to 2020 as a year where we make our apology and repent of our past complicities with enslavement and look to how we can rise up with Jesus in seeking racial justice. Some of the text is emboldened should this be used in a group setting, when people can respond in several voices. Where this is used in private reflection then this can be ignored.

My homilies for the Sundays of the Christmas Season Cycle B, with the following titles: "Peace And Prosperity" NEW YEAR 2012 (Cycle B), and "Religion and Society Part III" (Epiphany - Cycle B)

2016

I t has been a long day already, and Timothy is in low spirits. The work is not going well. The congregation is not what it used to be, and problems seem to mount at every turn. Unhealthy doctrine infects many church members, threatening unity and mission. Church attendance is down, and those who are showing up have their own agendas. They do not come to worship or serve; they turn up to be served. The joy has been sucked out of the community's life. Some in the church-namely, Hymenaeus and Philetus-have been stirring up trouble, claiming that the resurrection of the dead has already taken place. Where do they come up with this heresy? Timothy is weary of countering these false doctrines. And despite his efforts, confusion still seems to reign. The newer converts to Christ do not know which voices to trust. Members do not seem to care as much about what he has to say. The pressure of ministry weighs heavily on him as the community muddles along. The season is a bad one, indeed. Timothy's furrowed face reveals that the stress has taken a toll. He senses that he is losing his authoritative voice in the community. With a deep sigh, Timothy opens the newspaper on his desk to the Help Wanted section. He wonders whether it may be time for a career change-it's not the first time he has considered the option. Unfortunately, the ad postings remind Timothy that he is not trained for many of the available jobs. His work history and skill set are narrow. There seems to be nowhere to go, no way to avoid the cyclical storms he finds himself constantly trying to weather. Timothy buries his head in his hands. Hot tears begin to drip onto his desk. His stomach is tight, his breathing shallow; he feels like a failure in so many ways. Thoughts of his mentor, Paul, come to his mind. He cannot help but feel that he has let Paul down. Paul, in prison now, unable to experience the freedom Timothy has, would know what to do in times like this. Yet Paul is actually in prison, while Timothy just feels imprisoned. The guilt causes more tears. Timothy's thoughts flow back to his congregation. Karen has discovered her husband's affair; he is about to leave her and the kids. How, Timothy wonders, will she make it? Jason has lost his job. With six mouths to feed and no appreciable skills, he is in a dire situation. He has asked, "Can the church help float us for a few months?" Timothy knows that the church financials do not look good. How will they manage to help Jason and his family? Then there's the Wilson family, who have recently suffered more loss than Timothy wants to imagine. They lost a child in a tragic accident and a grandparent to pancreatic cancer, and now the mother has been diagnosed with a serious chronic illness. Every Sunday when they come into church, it feels like the shadow of death is cast over them. The sting of death is written on their faces. Timothy also thinks about Brian, who has been coming into his office every few days to talk. Nothing in Brian's life appears to be wrong, but he is experiencing darkness; he is living in winter for no visible reason. "I don't know why," he recently told Timothy, "but I'm just sad all the time. All I want to do is sleep. My family doesn't cheer me up. My work doesn't cheer me up. I can't pray.. .. I'm just so sad."

Homilies for the 3 Sundays of the Christmas Season Cycle C, with titles: "Star Rising in the East" (Feast of the Epiphany), "Bar Mitvah" (Feast of the Holy Family), and "Son the Beloved" (Feast of the Lord's Baptism).

Enlivening the Faith, June Boyce-Tillman, ed, Peter Lang, Ltd, 2019

Every Thursday night for nearly twenty years, a diverse group of 30-100 people gather for worship and a meal in a midtown Memphis church. The service is short and loosely follows the Presbyterian litugy: an opening hymn, a sentence or two of confession and prayer, and an acclamation of pardon are followed by a statement of peace and symbolically passing this peace through the handshakes of those assembled. The second section begins with another hymn and contains a scripture selection and short sermon. After a third hymn, an invitation is issued to a communion table with the Eucharist taken by intinction. The irregularity of this service, is that it is not comprised of members of the host church, but primarily filled with the men, women, and children of the streets of Memphis. The leaders of the service are all volunteer lay persons, with an ordained minister who presides over the communion. If there is no minister available, the the service proceeds with more prayers and songs, but no communion. Stereotypes of the homeless are a difficult challenge to surmount, even with well-meaning leadership. For many years the hymns were selected from the denominational hymnal in the pews, led by the accompanist at the piano with his/her back to the audience. These hymns were chosen nearly at random, and, though willing, very few attendees even attempted to sing. The service was flat and a place for the street folk to come into for warmth in winter or relief from the brutal Memphis heat and humidity during the long summer. The congregation represents the least ones that Jesus spoke of and consequently demands more respectful attention from the worship leaders in order to release the spirituality buried in their souls. Out of desperation, a change in liturgy and music presentation was suggested and applied about three years ago. Using the sensitive words of liturgies from the Iona Community, participatory readings and prayers were inserted and call and response and echo songs replaced the wordy verses and complex hymn tunes. For the singing, the musician stands in front of the worshipers and leads the hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs with an unaccompanied, face-to-face manner using physical gestures and expressions to encourage a corporate synergy. No hymnals, no paper, no projections. As with many 'simple' modifications, a more focused preparation of the singing is required, but the results are abundantly fruitful. The group now sings in community with the host church resulting in an almost palpable spirituality. Though the weather is still a factor, the people return, week after week, and look forward to sharing their voices. Digital technology effectively changed Christian worship services from provincial cultural events to ones of global impact and inclusion. The directives of the Roman Catholic services stemming from the Second Vatican council of the early 1960s led to major changes of the music within the services of all sects and denominations. An important difference is that the organ and the piano are no longer the assumed instruments of choice for accompanying congregational singing. After fifty years of incendiary conflict over music within the churches, worship

My three homilies for the Christmas Season of the Liturgical Cycle A with the following topics: "Flight to Egypt" for the Feast of the Holy Family, "Peace and Prosperity" for the New Year 2013, and "THREE KINGS" for the Feast of the Epiphany (Cycle A).

In a sample of cardiac surgery patients interviewed prior to and following surgery, we develop and test new measures for multiple dimensions of the experience of attendance at worship services, which is usually measured solely with a single item for frequency of attendance. Factor analysis produced eight multi-item measures and two single items for self-ratings of religiousness and spirituality. In Cox regression models adjusted for health status and health risk prior to surgery, as well as intra-and post-operative status, complications, and length of hospitalization, pre-operative sense of purpose and self-rated spirituality were associated with a lower hazard of mortality, and positive worship emotions were associated with a higher hazard of mortality. Neither preoperative nor post-operative measures of religious practice were associated with 12-month changes in SF-36 physical function or SF-36 role limitations. Dimensions of religious worship experiences are important to understand, but may be more strongly associated with physical health outcomes in healthy, population-based samples than in patient samples.

A Christmas sermon for St. Paul's Anglican Church Carroll Street

Terms like ritual and symbol reduce the meaning and purpose of baptism.