The doctrine of Predestination and Election is one of the hardest of all the hard Christian doctrines. If you don’t believe, if you don’t have faith, it is because God has not chosen you. You do not belong. John 10:25-26, “Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe… you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

So, whose fault is this? Whose fault is it that you have not been chosen? Yours or God’s? It seems like it is all on God. If God has not chosen you, then how can it be your fault if you do not believe? Likewise, how can it possibly be to your credit if you do believe? God predestined you to belong to him, so you believe it him. If it’s been God’s choice all along, then where are you in all of this? When do you get to choose?

Sermon for Easter 4, Year C (read, listen).

Readings from Acts 9:36-43; Rev. 7:9-17; John 10:22-30.

Preached at Holy Trinity Church Inwood, 20 Cumming Street, New York, New York 10034, on May 12, 2019.

People say God is judgmental and that “judgment” smacks of arrogance. Indeed, to the unruly human heart, God’s will does seem arrogant. But to the heart that is obedient, to the heart that follows Christ, God’s will inspires confidence. For the God who wills to love us, also wills the means by which we are loved. He wills a love that makes us alive, just as it made Christ alive three days after a shameful death.

The church needs leaders who are not afraid to be obedient to the Lord — and who, in that obedience, discover the confidence to lead — knowing that their leadership is backed by a love that death and hell cannot stop. That is what Easter means.

Sermon for Easter 3, Year C (read, listen).

Readings from Acts 9:1-6, [7-20]; Rev. 5:11-14; John 21:1-19.

Preached at Holy Trinity Church Inwood, 20 Cumming Street, New York, New York 10034, on May 5, 2019.

Peter tells us, “The resurrected Christ appeared not to all the people, but to those who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead,” which is exactly what we have been doing, we who are chosen as witnesses. This is what we have been doing here in this place for over 90 years, eating and drinking with the Lord at His table.

Our humble church is every bit the equal of her elder, more esteemed sister in Paris, because both have held what cannot be held. Indeed, this and every other church is just one more empty tomb, just one more memorial in the land of the dead, begging the world to consider the question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” “He is not here,” the men in dazzling clothes tell the women who have come to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. “You look for him and he is not here.”

Sermon for Easter Day, Year C (read, listen).

Readings from 1 Cor. 15:19-26; Acts 10:34-43; Luke 24:1-12.

Preached at Holy Trinity Church Inwood, 20 Cumming Street, New York, New York 10034, on April 21, 2019.

For those of us who have put our faith in God’s enigmatic and mysterious plan, and God’s plan includes God law, then God will “transform the body of humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory by the power that enables him to make all things subject to himself.” The power that enables him to make all things subject to himself … Talk about a mystery. Talk about an enigma, the empty tomb. Just what kind of power is this? It is the power that enables Jesus to live out the mystery and enigma of God’s plan. It is the power of faith.

Now Jesus knows the horror of the cross is staring him in the face when he rebuffs the attempts to warn him of the plot against him, and he predicts he will meet his death in Jerusalem. “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you,” the Pharisees implored Jesus. “I must be on my way,” comes Jesus’ reply. In other words, “I must let God’s strange plan unfold.”

Sermon for Lent 2, Year C (read, listen).

Readings from Gen. 15:1-12,17-18; Phil. 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35.

Preached at Holy Trinity Church Inwood, 20 Cumming Street, New York, New York 10034, on March 17, 2019.