Sermons Dec.-Oct. 2021

Christmas Sermon 2021
12/24/21
All Will Be Well
After a tough year the Rev’d D. Rebecca Dinovo speaks to the true meaning of Christmas, and enlists Charles Schulz’s Peanuts crew to help keep it simple. You have a role in this play too. Merry Christmas! Read now.

Sunday Advent 4
12/19/21
An Out of Balance World
Holding hope and judgment in creative tension, the Rev’d Mark Hargreaves tells us “Advent is a time to hope, to stir up a holy dissatisfaction with how things are…We all recognize the world is out of balance, that something is not right”. He concludes, however, that “God sees and will one day act to redeem what has been lost.” Read now.

Sunday, Advent 3
12-12-21
Joy? Today?
On this 3rd “Rose” Sunday in Advent the Rev’d D. Rebecca Dinovo chooses to speak to us about Joy precisely because of our current gloomy civil and public health situations. Pointing us toward hope, she offers that “…Suffering is not a dead end or the final word – it is temporary and it can actually give way and give birth to joy within us.” Read now.

Sunday Advent 2
12/5/21
Now/Not Yet
In this second Sunday in Advent the Rev’d Mark Hargreaves discusses the creative tension we encounter as we contemplate both the birth of Jesus, and his second coming at the end of time, living in the day, and living in the not yet. FYI, Einstein knew about this too.
Read now.

Sunday Advent 1
11/28/21
Beginnings and Ends
On this first Sunday in Advent, which also includes a baptism,
The Rev’d Mark Hargreaves would like us to begin our church year with the end in mind. The gospel reading for the day, St. Luke’s vision of the end times,  serves as focus as Fr. Mark asks us to “pay attention to our own lives,
to the world around us.” Read now.

​Sunday, Advent 1
11/29/20
Our Advent Mess
(From the Advent 1 Sermon on 11/29/20) On this 1st Sunday in Advent the Rev’d Mark Hargreaves clarifies that we’re not in a period waiting for Christ’s first coming, we’re in a period waiting for his SECOND coming, and “The call on us is not to make ourselves neat and tidy to meet with God, it’s to reflect on our lives, and to admit that we have sinned, that we’ve not followed God perfectly.” Read now.

Thanksgiving Day 
11/25/21
A Thankful Heart
Sometimes it’s not easy to give thanks. In his sermon this Thanksgiving Day The Rev’d Mark Hargreaves dives into this topic and suggests two habits we might cultivate on our way to a thankful heart. Read now.

Sunday, Christ the King
11/21/21
What Is Truth?
In our fractious “post-truth” world, and on this Christ the King Sunday, The Rev’d D. Rebecca Dinovo gives us five solid ways to figure out the question Pilate put to Jesus: “What is truth”? Hint: the answer leads us back to the King. Read now.

Sunday, Remembrance Day (Pentecost 25)
11/14/21
Remember God
On this day when we celebrate Veterans Day and remember all who served, The Rev’d Mark Hargreaves points out the centrality of remembering that courses throughout the Bible. In La Jolla it can be easy to forget God, but God sent his only Son to us so that we would NOT forget, but remember. Read now.

Sunday, All Saints Day
11/7/21
Your Dazzling Light
Celebrating the Feast of All Saints The Rev’d Mark Hargreaves recognizes both the saints that have gone before as well as the saints that are with us today. Having just experienced being dazzled by a person he’d met, Fr. Mark realized “…the light of Christ was shining out of this saint who I was greeting. We are the saints of God called to be Christ’s light in the world.” Read now.

Sunday Pentecost 23
10/31/21
Weather talk
For our third week in this stewardship season of love The Rev’d D. Rebecca Dinovo takes her cue from St. Mark’s gospel where Jesus gives us the two greatest commandments. But how are we to love our neighbors in today’s fractious environment? It may be more complicated than talking about the weather, but it can at the very least start there! Read now.

Sunday Pentecost 22
10/24/21
Skipping and jumping
Our second Sunday in stewardship season finds Jesus on the way to Jericho and stopped in his tracks by the beggar Bartimaeus. The Rev’d Mark Hargreaves sees Bartimaeus’ reaction to Jesus right in keeping with his call last week to “hilarious giving”, inviting us all to skip and jump our way to the goal of “Love”. Read now.

Sunday, Stewardship, Pentecost 21
10/17/21
Hilarious Giving
As we kick off the St. James 2022 Stewardship Campaign The Rev’d Mark Hargreaves puts a fresh spin on the subject of “cheerful” giving as he sets our sights on St. James one hundred years hence. You’re invited.
​Dare to go; it could be quite hilarious!
Read now.

Sunday, Pentecost 20
10/10/21
Hungry Enough?
The Rev’d Mark Hargreaves surveys the story of the rich young ruler seeing it as “…a story about grace, and how we respond to God’s offer of grace in Christ Jesus.” Are we able to “trust the promise of treasuring heaven enough to relinquish the treasures that he has on earth?”
Read now.

Sunday, Feast of St. Francis
10/3/21
The Wolf of Gubbio
This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of St. Francis and find The Rev’d D. Rebecca Dinovo using the storied Wolf of Gubbio to ask us “What would it look like to have more mutually beneficial relationships and
​a sense of greater loving responsibility?”
Read now.