Pentecost is the fulfillment of ancient promises! John even told us in our passage that the Spirit had not yet been sent because Christ had not yet been glorified. In Acts 2, however, with the God being glorified in Christ crucified, raised, and ascended, the prophesied and promised Spirit is shared among Jesus’ followers, filling them to overflowing. Continue reading Is the LORD’s Power Limited?
The ascension means that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, reigning and ruling over all of creation, filling all things, interceding and mediating on our behalf, inviting us to boldly approach the throne of grace, until he comes again in the fullness of time to consummate the kingdom he has already inaugurated. Continue reading For What and Now What?
Read through the lens of Jesus, Abraham’s story is a depiction of the eucharistic life. We may be missing bread and wine, but his journey by stages includes the other elements of the eucharist: praise, worship, sacrifice, covenant, and the unrelenting love of the Faithful One. The altars which Abraham builds are like lighthouses amidst a weary and wanting world stand as a reminder of God’s presence to light the way as a spiritual reference point. The eucharist is given to us as a lighthouse, as well, that we might find safe harbor. The one who is both priest-and-victim is ever with us. God is present in the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and everywhere in between. Continue reading The God Who Provides
Jesus doesn’t become glorious on the mountain. He has always been glorious, from before the beginning of time, from before the foundations of the world. In the Transfiguration, we find the veil being pulled back and Jesus is seen and revealed as he truly is! Continue reading Behold and Beholding the Glory
This isn’t a forgiveness story or reconciliation tale, however. It is a reinstitution, restoration, and redemption story. It is a reprise, a re-commissioning for ministry. As C.S. Lewis so masterfully describes it in The Last Battle of The Chronicles of Narnia: Jesus invites Peter to go further up, further in. Continue reading Further Up, Further In: The Reprise
I sonder as I wander to the cross at calvary;
I watch the faces in the crowd discover his blood for thee;
Every life finds its meaning in the weight of his glor’y;
I sonder as I wander to the cross at calvary. Continue reading I sonder as I wander
This is a liturgy which Rebecca Brust Taylor (my wife) and I wrote together back in 2019. I will flesh it out further, but for now I am uploading the document so it can be used in the forthcoming Wiley Blackwell Companion to Liturgical Theology. Continue reading The Churching of a Woman and Her Family After Childbirth or Adoption
This sermon was originally preached at St. David’s By-the-Sea in Cocoa Beach, Florida on Sunday, September 15 2024 for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19B). The lessons assigned were: Proverbs 1:20-33; Psalm 19; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38. In July of 2015, Nigel Richards performed a feat so astounding it sent the internet into a … Continue reading Scrabble and The Word Made Flesh
This sermon was originally delivered at St. David’s By-the-Sea in Cocoa Beach Florida on September 8, 2024. The lessons were from Proper 18B (Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37) In 1994, legendary country singer, Alan Jackson, famously announced: the whole world’s gone country. Country music seems to fall in and out … Continue reading This One’s for the Losers
The grace and glory of God are most fully revealed and embodied through Jesus in the cross as he bears the weight and punishment of our sins so we don’t have to! We had racked up a debt which we could not pay, but the Son poured himself out on the cross in our stead. Continue reading God of Grace and God of Glory
Porter C. Taylor 