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Lucy, John, and You: Witnesses to the Light

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Today is the 3rd Sunday of Advent, and today, December 13th, is also Saint Lucy’s day. The Feast of St. Lucy is not a major feast day, so it does not take precedence over a regular Sunday service. This is not like Mary Sunday where we get special Mary readings and Mary prayers. It is not like All Saints Sunday with special All Saints readings and All Saints prayers. And even though today is not technically a major feast day, for some people it is pretty major. It is definitely an important feast day for them.

Click “Read More” to read or listen to Bingham’s entire sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Advent.

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Waiting for God: Oh What Do We Do While We Wait

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Does anyone else feel a little bit of hope? Anticipation that an end to our horrors is nigh? We’re told that this end is coming, and we’re just now beginning to see it, breaking through the clouds like a single ray of sunshine. I’m talking about the Covid-19 vaccine, of course. We’ve learned to live with the daily messages of doom. We’ve secluded ourselves for reasons of hope, but too often with the result of hopelessness. We’re presented daily with sickness statistics and death statistics and dire warnings about wearing our PPE and staying home. But now, suddenly, it’s beginning to feel like our vigilance isn’t hopeless, and that is because of the “good tidings” we’ve heard about a vaccine that is coming soon. We’re still locked down, still washing our hands vigorously, still maintaining our distance from others, still doing what we need to do to safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. But where just a month ago it felt onerous, now it feels like there’s an attainable goal, and that gives new energy. It’s the energy of expectancy;

Click “Read More” to read or listen to Dr. Crow’s complete sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Advent

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Is this the apocalypse

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“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.

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Is this really a time for gratitude?

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“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.

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Where is Christ Found

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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

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Read, Mark, Learn, and Inwardly Digest

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"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.

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Agents of Hope

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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.

Read or Listen to Bingham's entire sermon by clicking “Read More.” If it's meaningful to you, share it with a friend.

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