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Showing posts with the label St. Stephen

Sermon - Trinity XIII, 2026 - 2 Chronicles 28:8-15

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The Good Samaritan, Joseph Highmore, 1744   God’s People are Those Who Have Faith in Him We typically think my people are those who are like me externally History of the two kingdoms The Faithful Remnant of Samaria was more faithful than Judah We are God’s people through faith The lawyer asked Jesus: “ Who is my neighbor? ” That’s another way of asking: “Who are my people?” We ask this question because like prefers like and we want to love those people who are like us more than we love those who are not like us. This is a generally true principle in many facets of life. We do this in mostly playful ways with sports, where we greatly prefer our team which we identify with and we do not like the rival teams. This happens more seriously between countries, sometimes even to the point of war. This happens with some seriousness between political parties, sometimes leading to political assassinations. This happens in families when one family member defends another even through criminal be...

Sermon - Feast of St. Stephen 2021 - Acts 6:8-7:2a, 51-60

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The Martyrdom of St. Stephen , Annibale Carracci, 1604 Merry Christmas!  Our readings for this second day of Christmas seem out of place at first glance. Reading about the stoning of Zecheriah, the stoning of Stephen, and Jesus prophesying about others being martyred as well doesn’t seem to fit in with little baby Jesus lying in a manger. But wiser Christians than myself long ago saw fit to read about the first Christian martyr on December 26th. In fact, it fits quite well, since the martyrdom of St. Stephen corrects our romanticized and commercialized view of Christmas. Christmas today has been, like Charlie Brown says, commercialized; even the dog has gone commercial. It’s about family gatherings, presents, concerts, and food. It’s about warm fuzzy feelings in your belly. We also tend to romanticize the first Christmas with pristine nativities and pretty Christmas carols about a baby Jesus who doesn’t cry. We tend to forget that Mary gave birth with the animals not because the ho...