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.
By Another Road 