Words From Silence: Contemplation in a World of Action

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark 5 th Sunday After Epiphany, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector I was thinking again this week of old, wizened Simeon in the temple—cradling and being cradled by the one in the cradle—the child Jesus who comes into the world as the full and final manifestation of the light of God’s love for all people without exception. In particular, I was remembering those lines from the Nunc Dimittis —“You have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised... a light to enlighten the nations and the glory of your people Israel.” Simeon has been freed from something (what the Letter to the Hebrews calls the fear of the power of death, rigid adherence to the law), but he has also been freed for something, hasn’t he? Freedom from and freedom for . Freedom from all those things that hinder the light and life of Christ from living itself in and through us, and freedom to be salt and light for everyone ...

A Sermon Preached at the cathedral Church of St. Mark Presentation of Our Lord The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector Though the twelve days of Christmas ended on the Twelfth Night and Feast of Epiphany, there is a way in which this season of light coming into a dark, broken, and strife-addled world comes to its great fulfilment on February 2 nd —the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord. This is the day when we celebrate the recognition of Jesus by old Simeon and Ancient Anna. And you might have noticed that the liturgy began a little differently today. We began with prayers the bless the “lights,” the candles of the Church, not because we are fire-worshippers who spend our free time at Yankee Candle in the mall, but so that the light we see kindled there, the light of Christ’s love for all people and all of creation, might find its proper place in our hearts. In a world of darkness, in a world of turmoil, we pray that we might root and ground our lives in the l...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark 3 rd Sunday after Epiphany, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector Here we are at the start of the year, and here we are at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel with the calling of Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, James and John. Their decision to “Drop their nets” and follow Jesus is one of those paradigmatic test cases for conversion. It’s deeply ingrained in our understanding of the Christian life. We hear about people “making a decision for Christ,” in a single, all-consuming moment. Sometimes, people can even tell you the exact time, place, and date of this moment.  I’m not denying the reality of these sudden moments of conversion. They are well-attested in scripture through the likes of Peter, Paul, Isaiah, and Samuel. A dramatic experience of the in-breaking otherness of God reveals itself to the person and is followed by a radical change in the direction of the person’s life....

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark 2nd Sunday After Epiphany, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector “What are you looking for?” is one of those big, cosmic questions that gets right to the heart of what it means to be a human being. John’s disciples see Jesus walking by and in his person they connect with their human longing for a well-lived life. A life, not of skating across the surface, but lived to the full. A life of depth, meaning, and purpose. A life that embodies the peace and joy they see radiating from this itinerant rabbi on the move who won’t even stop walking while he asks the question. The two disciples can’t articulate what it is they’re looking for. All they know is that they yearn for more. They can’t put their finger on what that more might be, what it might look like, or how they might find it, but they’ve connected with that sense of holy longing, the dawning recognition that life might just about more than they’ve...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Baptism of Our Lord, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & rector When Peter declares to the Gentiles, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality,” it’s easy to miss that what we are experiencing in these lines is a conversion no less significant the conversion of Saul. It signifies a profound shift in Peter’s whole way of seeing and being in world, one that gives a glimpse into where God was calling the nascent church in its earliest days and where God is still calling us as faithful followers of Jesus today. You remember the story. Peter goes up onto the roof to pray. He’s hungry and wants something to eat. While the kosher meal is being prepared he falls into a trance and sees the “heavens opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners.” In the sheet are all kinds of animals, and reptiles and birds of the air, and he hears a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St.   Mark Feast of the Epiphany The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector I remember the first time I saw a firefly as a young child. It was up in Georgian Bay, three or four hours north of Toronto—a land of water, rock, and pine, spiced with the trill of loon calls at dusk. We were gathered around a campfire, watching the sparks float up and disappear into the wash of the Milky Way that sluiced overhead. At the edge of our little campsite I saw what I thought at first was an ember. I left my spot on a rock and went to investigate. This was no ordinary ember I quickly realized. It was something I’d never seen before—it looped and danced and winked with a lemony glow and vanished into the woods. These were the heady days of Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone , so I hitched up my belt, tightened the strap of my imaginary pith helmet and set off in hot pursuit. The firefly wound its way through the forest as I trip...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark The Second Sunday after Christmas The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean and Rector Herod is nervous. Fearful. And, as it says in our Gospel, “all of Jerusalem with him.” Fear is contagious, and the little child born in a manger is striking fear into the hearts of everyone. What’s going on? It’s a story as old as time. Human beings, when confronted with love come among us, boundary-crossing love that reveals itself as the embrace of the last, the least, the lost, and left behind, shakes things up. And the powerful elites, the ruling classes who benefit from the existing social order and reap its rewards, don’t like things being shaken up. The way things are, in their minds, is just fine. This Jesus, even as a baby with a strange entourage of Wise Men from the east, is a rabble-rouser who threatens to spoil the good thing Herod and his gang have going. Rowan Williams, in his reading of the crucifixion, writes that “When...