Words From Silence: Contemplation in a World of Action

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Easter 7C The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector In our reading from Acts this week we have a jailbreak—the freeing of Paul and Silas from the innermost cell where they’ve been stripped and beaten and had their feet fastened in stocks. Acts, in its typically cinematic way, is trying to remind us of something very simple—that the Christian life, the life of discipleship, is all about freedom, the freedom of life in Christ. This freedom is all-encompassing and includes freedom from all different kinds of things that keep us bound—images and stories about ourselves, others, and God, mechanically habitual ways of seeing and being that keep us trapped, unhealthy patterns of relationship. Prisons come in all shapes and sizes, and in a certain way you might say, “we are all doing time.” When we hear that around midnight, “ there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immed...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Feast of the Ascension & Celebration of a New Ministry The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector At a recent meeting of the House of Bishops, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry asked how we can live in such a way that, “when folk look at Episcopalians, they longer see those that we celebrated for their power and their glory, but they see those who celebrate the glory and grandeur and goodness of God. How do we make that happen?” What a question! How do we make that happen? With a liturgy titled The Installation of a New Rector or the Celebration of a New Ministry, it’s easy to think that this is all about the person being installed, rather than one we call Lord, the one we follow tripping after down the way of love. On our altar at home—when it hasn’t been desecrated by a flying Barbie Mobile, a nerf gun dart, or a soccer ball—we have an icon of Christ Pantocrator flanked on one side by Rublev’s John the Bapti...

A Sermon at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Easter 6C: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 5:1-9 The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector The Book of Revelation is an admittedly strange text that has been put to all sorts malicious uses. Picture the wild-eyed street corner preacher calling sinners to repent because the end is nigh from atop his soap box. Or the end of times predictions that roll around every few months that treat revelation as a calendar of events, a timeline, that can be deciphered with the right key. That’s what happens when you read poetry as if it were a math problem. It’s rather like going to the Symphony and leaving with what you think is a clear map for your financial future. It does a disservice to the music, and I daresay, to your financial future. So if Revelation is not a calendar of events, or a timeline, what is it? Well, the name of the book gives us a hint—it’s the Book of Revelation, not the Book of Revelati...