Loosed Canon

Pentecost 11 Sermon, Year C 2019 August 25, 2019 St. Michael’s Episcopal Church The Rev. Canon Michael Horvath Luke 13:10-17 Today’s gospel reading presents us with a woman unnamed – the “crippled woman” as she is known, because she was bent over and could not stand up straight. Her body said it all -- bent over and imprisoned by her physical debility.                That is, until she encounters Jesus, who sets her free from her ailment, and he does so incurring the indignation of the leader of the synagogue who upbraids him for healing on the Sabbath. I imagine the crowd staring in awe as this woman is healed, but this faith leader wasn’t having any of it.  This leader wasn’t indignant because Jesus healed someone but because this healing occurred on the Sabbath when everyone should be resting and praying. The timing was his issue -- as if there were ever a bad time for freedom from bondag...

Pentecost 10 Sermon, Year C 2019 August 18, 2019 St. Michael’s Episcopal Church The Rev. Canon Michael Horvath Luke 12:49-56 As many of you know, I spent last week in Colorado. If you’ve been to Colorado, you know that it’s a state that is beautiful on a grand scale. Spacious skies, purple mountain majesty, and fruited plains. There’s something about the landscape and topography that evokes both a sense of gratitude and humility in the face of such God-created beauty. But, still, I missed my community here in Bristol and as the week progressed, I looked more and more forward to coming home and to being amongst you all again. I guess love has a certain way of pulling us back right to where we belong. And then I read today’s Gospel reading. It certainly didn’t jibe with the feelings of love and yearning I had. When I returned to Bristol on Friday, I was filled with one set of emotions that were quickly snuffed out as I remembered the passage on which I had to preach today. ...

Pentecost 8 Sermon Yr C -  St. Michael’s Episcopal Church The Rev. Canon Michael J. Horvath (Colossians 3:1-11 Luke 12:13-21) ______________________________ I must admit that I’ve never been a big fan of the Apostle Paul, and it is a rare occasion when I would preach from one of his Epistles or his story in the Acts of the Apostles. His conversion on the road to Damascus is certainly engaging, I grant, but it’s when he starts to open his mouth (or put pen to papyrus) that he becomes less of a light for me in some ways. Paul has written some of the most beautiful and important passages in the whole of the Bible. But over the centuries his works have often been used to justify homophobia, slavery, anti-Semitism, and anti-feminism. For example, the language that he uses later in this same chapter of Colossians - wives be subject to your husbands, and slaves obey your masters - are gaining new currency with certain segments of our society to again support these same outmode...