Month: June 2026

Connection: A Sermon

I preached this sermon on Sunday, June 28, 2026 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH. The lectionary texts cited are Romans 6:12-23 and Matthew 10:40-42.

There are certain moments in your life when you feel a profound sense of connection—with the people around you, or with God, or even with some deep part of yourself. These moments are precious when they appear. 

And I have to say, I’ve experienced a lot of them lately. 

The past few weeks have, for me and Matt, been so full of care and kindness and beauty and connection that I am still trying to process all of it. We got back to town on Monday afternoon and have been catching up on all of life’s practicalities. 

But I can’t shake the sense that, although there is still trash to be taken out and laundry to fold and groceries to put away, all of these familiar everyday things have been transfigured by the sense of connection and the love we have shared with all of you and all those dear to us over the course of our wedding celebrations. 

The cynics might call this sort of thing a honeymoon phase, I suppose. But although it is certainly true that life is not all cake and flowers, I’m not just talking about an emotional high or a glossing over of conflict. 

No, in all these recent experiences of connection, I feel like I was given the opportunity to glimpse behind the veil, so to speak— to see what life is really and truly about when all our distractions and fears and frustrations are swept away.

I don’t think I am in honeymoon-mode or that I have stars in my eyes when I tell you that connection is what it’s all about. Connection is the fundamental purpose for which we were made. Connection to the goodness within ourselves; and connection to the goodness within each other; and, ultimately, connection to the Goodness of God. The search for that connection is not without its challenges and pitfalls, and it requires great risk and vulnerability, and sometimes it costs us a great deal, but it is, in the end, the only thing that makes life meaningful.

That is certainly what we felt when we celebrated at St. Anne on June 7 and when we saw many of your faces at the Cathedral a couple Saturdays ago. It is also what I saw in images of people at the Pride parade yesterday, and what I observed in witnessing a friend’s ordination to priesthood this weekend.

And that sense of connection is what I cherish every time we gather on Sunday, or when we get together one-on-one talk about life or to pray or grieve, or when we come together in groups for Bible study or service. So many connections being revealed and strengthened and repaired. 

And I suspect, if you think back on the most meaningful moments in your life—both the happy ones and the hard ones, too—they, too, were meaningful precisely because they had something to do with connection. A hand held, a confidence shared, a hello or a goodbye, a kindness offered, a bridge built across some chasm of loneliness. These moments can be as monumental as a wedding or as small as a conversation at coffee hour. Scale doesn’t matter as much as quality. The more connected we are, the more alive we become.

So it stands to reason that God, who gave us life and who wants nothing more for us than to be connected to him and to each other—would have something to say to us about this through Scripture. And so it is this week in our lessons.

Consider Jesus’ words in today’s gospel. If you’ve read the passages leading up to this one, where he’s been describing in fiery detail all the hardships and dangers of discipleship, one might be left wondering why on earth anyone would want to follow the Christian path. And to the casual observer, that would make sense. This life of discipleship, with its loving of enemies and its relinquishment of easy assumptions and its embrace of the deep and wild mystery of God, is no honeymoon. So why would we take this risk? 

Jesus tells us plainly today: it is about connection. Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. In other words, this life, this path, this crazy, scandalous way of love—it will guarantee you the one thing the soul seeks above all else: to be part of something larger than ourselves. 

Welcome the good news of God’s love into your life and not only will you get a glimpse behind the curtain, but you will be invited to abide there in that transfigured reality where even grocery shopping and laundry folding can become sacred reminders of the love we share. And yes, the cynics may call it a honeymoon phase, but we call it the Kingdom. And it endures not for one season, but forever. 

The problem is that we keep trying to make other things last forever—things like power or money or material achievements. These are the more obvious pursuits in life, the seemingly less risky prospects. 

Precisely because connection with God and with other people is messy and unpredictable, we would, instead, rather find our fulfillment in the things we can tailor to our liking. There’s just one catch—these things always fade away. 

The cake goes stale. The flowers wither. The vacation ends and the stacks of laundry await. It’s not a great evil that these things happen—it’s just the way things are. But if we have invested all of ourselves into the permanence of such things, we will be in for great disappointment when they do not endure. And they never do. Only connection can last.

That’s what Paul is getting at in his words to the Romans today. Although this passage has usually been interpreted as a sort of finger wagging at bad behavior, it’s deeper than that. When Paul says “the wages of sin is death” this is not fire and brimstone so much as it is a plain truth: if we fix our hearts only on things that ultimately wither and die, our hearts will die with them. 

This is not just a moral failing…it is the great tragedy of life. Far better, then, far more hopeful and joyful, Paul says, to give our heart to the one thing that does not die: the connections—to God and to each other—which we forge through love. Which is, it so happens, exactly what Jesus came and showed us how to do. 

So if the past few weeks have showed me anything about life, it’s this: the best place I can invest my time and my care is in maintaining and strengthening those connections that are founded on love. And, at any given moment, a good benchmark for my life is the extent to which I am doing this or not. 

Our politics and our society are not big on meaningful and authentic connection these days—quite the opposite, in fact. Which makes this truth as countercultural and urgent as it was in Paul’s time. 

So I wonder, for you: to what have you given over your heart? What connections are you making or retreating from? Where could you build a bridge across a chasm of loneliness? With whom do you need to repair the breach? 

And if you’re feeling isloated, or angry, or cut off—how can we help you, here at St. Anne, to do the work of reconnecting with yourself, with God, with other people? That is, in fact, what we are here to do. That is why we do faith in community, to practice the messy, sacred art of connection.

And I know it can be hard, sometimes. Relationships with people are tricky, and even a relationship with Jesus can be overwhelming and perplexing sometimes. 

But I am here to tell you, that, thanks to your love, and thanks to God’s love, I have recently seen behind the veil, and all of this—our relationships, our time together, the ways we try to care for each other and let God care for us—all of this is good. It is so very good. It is, honestly, the only thing that matters in this life. And it is the only thing that will last.

Because it’s the love that we share, the connection that we have built, all of us, together, with God’s help. There is no greater gift.

And cynics may say that’s just the honeymoon talking, but I say: it will last forever. 

Never Too Late: A Sermon

I preached this sermon on Sunday, June 7, 2026 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH. The lectionary texts cited are Hosea 5:15-6:6, Romans 4:13-25, and Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26. This Sunday was also the occasion of a large parish celebration for the upcoming wedding of myself and my partner, Matt.

This day has been a long time coming. But you know, I think that the extra-long wait has taught me something really important. Something I hope you will take away, too: it’s never too late. 

It is never too late for love. It is never too late to give love and it is never too late to live a life shaped by love. 

And yes, I suppose that applies to me as a now 42 year old groom-to-be with more than a few grays in his beard who took a little longer than some to find his partner in life. But that’s not all I am getting at when I say it’s never too late.

Because I think many of us, in all states of life, have at some time grappled with the sense that it is too late for us in one way or another. That we have waited too long to chase our dreams. Or we’ve let a broken relationship remain broken for too many years to fix it. Or we’ve made too many mistakes to be forgiven, or too many bad decisions to start fresh. That life is like a big party that we somehow missed by a couple of hours. 

But you know what? It’s never too late. It is never too late for love to find us, and change us, and help us begin again. And it is never too late to try and repair what is broken. Things may not always go the way we expect—they usually don’t—but it is never too late to try. 

And I think we need that reminder, maybe more often than we receive it, because the world around us seems to have a vested interest in making us always feel behind, feel a bit lost, feel not quite enough. 

But as I said last week at the Pride Service we offered at St. Anne, God has a different message for us. God says you, whoever you are, are already enough. You are already beloved and you already belong. There is no such thing as being too late when you realize that love is, indeed, patient, and kind, and all of those other things that love is. From God’s perspective, whenever you choose love, you are right on time.

We might even say that the Good News of Jesus is predicated on this premise of it never being too late. Because you can imagine, when Jesus came into the world (a lot like now, actually) that people were on the brink of despair. They’d been beaten down and battered, subjugated and subsumed into violence. They had made their own fair share of mistakes, too, over the years—all those things the prophets talk about. 

And so I suspect that, on a very large scale, some of the anxiety and agitation of Jesus’ time was due to a pervasive sense that it was too late to fix things. Too late to find the good again. Too long since people had walked with God in the wilderness and lived closely and gently with one another. 

But Jesus came and said: not only is it not too late, friends, but we are just getting started. I, your God, I am just getting started. Creation is beginning again. Follow me, and see how the sun can still rise on your biggest dreams and your deepest hopes. Whatever has gone before is gone. Let it be. Open your arms again like a child and receive the good news of this new day. 

I tell you all of this not just because I am feeling particularly grateful for new beginnings this week, but because I think this idea of “never too late” is what holds together our Scripture readings today. 

Although Hosea sounds rather dire, as he often does, he is not telling Israel that it is too late for them. He simply needs them to understand that true hope is found in a love of constancy, of  care, and not in fickle, performative gestures. You have been very good at those, he says to Israel. You have been very good at making grand gestures of sacrifice for God. But God just wants your heart—your simple, steadfast heart. And God wants you to know that its never too late to give it. Even when you’ve lost the plot and lost your way, it’s never too late to make your way back home to real love. 

And Paul, writing to the church at Rome, has a similar message. It’s not too late to become part of the family of God, he is saying. You Gentiles who did not grow up under the Law—guess what, neither did Abraham! He just ran into the desert with stars in his eyes and trust in his heart. And any of us can do the same thing. Any of us, right where we are, can start being exactly who God made us to be, and not just the lowest common denominator of ourselves.

And then, finally, there’s Matthew. Poor Matthew, sitting at his tax collector table. I think he must have been a rather sad figure there—estranged from his neighbors due to his profession, estranged from himself, wondering how on earth he got here with only coins for companions.

But here comes Jesus, Son of Love itself, patient and kind, his voice piercing the veil of a thousand regrets. Follow me, he says. That’s it. Follow me.

But what he’s really saying to Matthew is this: It’s not too late, my brother. It’s not too late, my child. I know you think it is. I know you think the sun has set on you; that the world is nothing but ledgers and uncounted costs; but hear me when I say: It’s never too late for love. It’s never too late to give love. It’s never too late to live a life shaped by love. So follow me, and see what else your life can be. 

St. Anne, as happy as today is, I know many folks are going through a lot these days—some of us have lost loved ones, or maybe gotten a scary test result, or are facing big transitions in the near future. Maybe we’re not feeling so sure how to handle whatever comes next in our life, in our society. Maybe we’re afraid we’re long past some point of no return. 

But look around you. Look at the people sitting next to you who love you, or who would love to love you if you get to know them better. Look at the party prepared in the other room—not just for a wedding, but as a sign of the deep and abiding love that this community is founded upon. Look at the way we raise the Pride flag and open doors to the marginalized and the doubtful and go out from those doors and serve. Look at the beauty of the songs we sing and the music we make. Look at the God who, in all of this, gives himself to us without reservation. 

And if these things tell you nothing else about yourself or life or God, let them tell you this: it is never too late for love. Because love is here. It is here for you, for me, for everyone. And as long as there is love to be found and built upon, like there is at St. Anne….then your story is not over yet. And the story of this world is not over either. Not by a long shot.

Just ask that old tax collector Matthew who jumped up from that table, all his coins and compromises scattering to the ground, as he ran headlong into the light of that new day. He never looked back.

I don’t know about you, but I’m done with feeling like it’s too late. I’m ready to follow Jesus and see where it goes. I am ready to leave behind regret and simply rejoice in the love that is all around us.

If you’re ready too, I have very good news for you: there’s a big party waiting for us in the other room. And far from being too late, I’d say that we are right on time.