Audio

Is this the apocalypse

“Happy Advent! It is so good to be starting a new church year. I have heard many say over the past few months that they can’t wait for this year to be over. So I say, why wait for the solar year? Let’s go ahead. It’s a new church year, so let’s go ahead and say that this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year is over. That does not mean that the pandemic is over, of course, but it does seem that things will start looking up at some point this year. So let’s just go ahead and start in on that.”

Click “Read More” to read or listen to Bingham’s entire sermon for the first Sunday of Advent.

Is this really a time for gratitude?

“my friends in Christ, I encourage you this day to set aside a little time, not just for feasting, not just for celebrating and relaxing and resting, but set aside some time to name those things for which you are grateful. Take the time to figure it out, name it, and offer up your thanks to God who is showering down love upon you, even in the midst of all that we face.”

Click “Read More” to read or listen to Bingham’s entire Thanksgiving Day sermon.

Where is Christ Found

I want to start my sermon today with a story. It is a story about a priest named Marc Nikkel. Marc was one of my dad’s priests in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, although he was not serving in the geographic boundaries of the Diocese because he was a missionary in Sudan. Marc spent the better part of the last twenty years of his life in Sudan, going there initially in 1981 to teach at the Bishop Gwynne College, an Anglican Episcopal school. Along the way he felt a call to the priesthood and so returned stateside for some coursework and to get ordained. Then he returned to Sudan as a priest.

Click “Read More” to read or listen to Bingham’s entire sermon

Read, Mark, Learn, and Inwardly Digest

"Our worship life is full of Scripture. Beyond our worship life, how is it that we discern things in the Episcopal way? That is also deeply rooted in Scripture. We have the concept of the three-legged stool. The idea that in order to understand anything about faith, anything about God or what God wants us to do in this world, we need to look at that dialogue of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, that dialogue of our minds, the voices of our ancestors, and Scripture. There are debates among Episcopalians as to whether all three of those are equal, or does Scripture have a bigger role. But however you look at it, Scripture is critically important."

Click “Read more” to read or listen to Bingham's entire sermon for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost.

Agents of Hope

We live in highly anxious times. That might be something of an understatement for 2020. There is so much to be understandably anxious about right now in this year. One of the side affects or outcomes of anxiety can be hopelessness. It is easy to allow anxiety to sap us of our hope. “Hope, that thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” as Emily Dickinson so beautifully put it. Hope is important to us. We need hope to keep moving forward, especially when times are so difficult. We need hope, and anxiety is the enemy of that hope.

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Love, Even in a Pandemic

As we talked about last week, Paul is writing this letter to a community that he misses immensely and desperately wants to see in person, but he can’t. So he is writing a letter using the technology of his day in order to communicate with them and to connect with them. It is not unlike what we are doing here, using the technology of our day, the video and internet, in order to connect with one another. As you read Paul’s letter you will see that it is quite clear that Paul is deeply affectioned to the people there in Thessalonica. Again, not unlike today. We are deeply affectioned to one another. I miss you immensely, I care for you deeply. This is what Paul was feeling.

Read Bingham’s entire sermon, or listen to the audio version, by clicking on “Read More.”