Christmas Sermon 2010

God's Annunciations

This Week's Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Advent
What is the mystery of the Annunciation, and how can we live that mystery in our lives?

St. Paul's on-the-Hill Sermons: God's Saints

St. Paul's on-the-Hill Sermons: God's Saints: "The Very Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith Sunday, November 07, 2010 10:00 am"

St. Paul's on-the-Hill Sermons: To Seek and To Save

St. Paul's on-the-Hill Sermons: To Seek and To Save: "The Very Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith Sunday, October 31, 2010 10:00 am"

St. Paul's on-the-Hill Sermons: What is Prayer?

St. Paul's on-the-Hill Sermons: What is Prayer?: "The Very Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith Sunday, October 17, 2010 10:00 am"

New Life in Christ

On Saturday September 25th, we baptized an adult man, a five-year-old girl, a baby boy, and a baby girl. Baptism is the start of a new life. In some ways, life is pretty much the same...you look the same the next day, there are the same activities, there are the same challenges as the day before. Sure in a week or two, an adult who is baptized might start doing something new with his or her church because of the commitment he or she has made. A baby is probably going to be doing the same things as the previous week. In the case of every person who is baptized, their lives have changed for ever. They are living a new life in Christ. Christ is living in them, we say. They have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever. God always loved them and cared for them. Through baptism, we are able to enter into the life of God in a new way. A visible sign of that new life is one's membership in the church, the Body of Christ. Once the water has dried, we need to be reminded of the awesome change that has occurred. As a family of faith, we nurture each other; we are on this journey deeper and deeper into the life of Christ together.

Sermon preview: The Wrong Kind of People

Growing up, many people are cautioned about hanging out with certain kinds of people, the wrong kind of people: people who look different, act different, live in a different part of town, have more, or have less than they did. Jesus was judged for eating with the wrong kind of people: the sinners and the tax collectors. The Pharisees had the facts right...Jesus did eat with the wrong people according to their culture. But what the Pharisees did not understand was the grace of God being reveal through the words and actions of Jesus. God searches for everyone. God will not give up on anyone...even people we might think of as a lost cause or a terrible person. The lesson we have in this week's Gospel, Luke 15:1-10, is really for those who consider themselves to be better than others and therefore remove themselves from the fullness of God's grace.

Sermon preview: The Wrong Kind of People

Growing up, many people are cautioned about hanging out with certain kinds of people, the wrong kind of people: people who look different, act different, live in a different part of town, have more, or have less than they did. Jesus was judged for eating with the wrong kind of people: the sinners and the tax collectors. The Pharisees had the facts right...Jesus did eat with the wrong people according to their culture. But what the Pharisees did not understand was the grace of God being reveal through the words and actions of Jesus. God searches for everyone. God will not give up on anyone...even people we might think of as a lost cause or a terrible person. The lesson we have in this week's Gospel, Luke 15:1-10, is really for those who consider themselves to be better than others and therefore remove themselves from the fullness of God's grace.

Knowing and Responding to God's Love

This week's sermon focuses on Jesus healing a woman who had been bent over and unable to stand up straight for 18 years. He does the healing on the Sabbath, which was considered work. The religious official wastes no time in telling Jesus, the woman, and the crowd, that it is wrong to heal on the Sabbath since God commanded that the Sabbath be a special day of rest devoted to God--just check the Ten Commandments. The official, who was a man of God, didn't know the love of God well enough to know that God's love cannot be contained on the Sabbath, and that when Jesus looked at that woman, he really saw her and loved her. There could be no delay in healing her. It seems simple to us, but at the time, it was not as clear. What helps us know God/God's love now in a way that allows us to honor our traditions but also be open to new ways of doing things so as to share the love of God that we have known?

Cookout July 2010

Christ and Conflict: Sermon August 15, 2010

As we look to the Diocesan Listening Sessions on Faithful Sexuality and the Blessing of Same-Gender Unions this fall, I reflect on the divisions in the Episcopal Church, how conflict is part of our lives as Christians, and how God will see us through the issue of human sexuality that is set before us.

Sermon August 8, 2010

This week I'm preaching about faith. We have the wonderful verse from the Letter to the Hebrews: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." What does it mean to have faith? Well, it does not mean that we don't ever have any doubts or questions. In the Episcopal Church, we value the asking of questions. Tillich, in The Dynamics of Faith, is clear that doubt is always a part of faith. Doubt is in fact, not the opposite of faith. In her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, Kathleen Norris describes her surprise that a monk did not think that her doubts were a major problem. Rather, the monk said that, "doubt is merely the seed of faith, a sign that faith is alive and ready to grow (p. 63)."

Rich Toward God

This weekend's sermon deals with money/possessions and how we relate to them as people of faith. What does it mean to be "rich toward God." Our personal history with money and possessions has a lot to do with how we think about money today and how we hear the Gospel message. What is the good news for the poor and the rich in today's lessons?

Are you awake out there?

Hi! I wonder of anyone has noticed that I stopped writing the blog back in Lent? Yes, Alisha (spoth website and all around church tech), I know you have. Now that it is July (the end of the July) and I'm back from three weeks of vacation, I think I have the energy to blog again! Lent was not a good time for the blogging, after a certain point. What has happened since then?

We have another priest at St. Paul's on-the-Hill! The Rev. Dr. Ellen Richardson is now priest-in-residence. She is bi-vocational, working as a Hospice doctor all week and then serves with us as she is able on the weekends. She just covered the services for my vacation, for which I am so thankful. It is great to have Ellen and her husband Mark as part of our church family.

We also have an additional preacher! The Rev. Bruce Gallup is a retired United Methodist pastor and now a part of our church. Bruce preaches about every six weeks. It is great to have Bruce and his wife Ellen as part of the ministry team. Many thanks to Bruce for preaching one of the weekends I was on vacation.

Lots more has happened since March...more on that later. Peace!

Lost and Found

Tomorrow I'm preaching on something we all deal with - forgiveness. And we deal with it from both sides: we all are in the situation of needing to forgive someone or at least know we have the opportunity to do so, and we all need to be forgiven from time to time. Sadly, for such an important topic, this complex matter of forgiveness is often presented by Christians as being simple. It is not simple. Forgiveness takes time; there are stages we need to experience. God's compassion is for all: it is for us when we are lost in our own sins, when we have wandered far to a distant land, distant from our true selves...AND God's compassion is for us when we are in the situation of forgiving others...we can be lost in the pain of the hurt we have suffered at the hand of another. In both cases, God is seeking to help us. Through God's grace, we who have been lost are found...found, connected to our true selves and to God, when we know we are forgiven, and when we know we have been able to forgive others.

Lent at St. Paul's on-the-Hill

As our cartoon friends discuss, Lent is not a sad time of year. It is a time to answer God's call to move even deeper into the divine life of God. God wants to be close to us, and Lent gives us a time to answer that call in a focused way. The whole idea of giving something up for Lent comes from the belief that when we let certain things go, we make more room for God in our lives. In this way, Lent is a glad time of year. Join us for Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17. We will have two services one at noon and one at 7pm...and that is just the start. Join us each Wednesday for our Lenten Program and each Sunday as we take this journey into Lent, and through Lent, as we move toward Easter.

Movies about SPOTH

My new favorite thing to do in my spare time is to create these little movies. You can go to http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6116459/ ...or just click on the movie to see this movie and others. We have a welcome to St. Paul's on the Hill movie and one about Lent (done by the youth group today).

Fulfilled in Jesus Christ

God's love is known to us through Jesus, and in Luke's Gospel this week we hear Jesus say that the words of comfort found in Isaiah are fulfilled in him for those who hear. Coming to church to worship God is a time of peace for me and I hope for you. Join us to learn more and more how God seeks to meet us where we are and bring us to "where" God is.