Words From Silence: Contemplation in a World of Action

  A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Proper 9, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty Those of you who grew up with the Rite I liturgy will recognize those last words from today’s gospel as one of the verses of scripture the priest can read after the confession/absolution and before we exchange the peace: “Hear the Word of God to all who truly turn to him. Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” The passage from Matthew continues, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” For many years, this passage has been a kind of koan, or wisdom saying for me. What, I’ve asked myself, is the refreshment of Christ? How does Christ refresh us? What is the effect of being refreshed by Christ and what does it look like in daily life? And what is this yoke that Jesus asks us to put on? How is being a Christian in ...

  A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Proper 8, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector Abraham, Isaac, and the End of Sacrifice One of the most important things to realize about the entire sweep of Holy Scripture—from Genesis to the Book of Revelation—is that it is a story whose main concern is to pronounce the end of sacrifice. It’s a story that’s told in fits and starts with human beings under the pressure of of God sometimes getting the message that sacrifice is something we need to weaned from in order to fulfill our destiny as truly human human beings, and sometimes falling back into old patterns, old traps where we think that the sacrifice of some person or group is justified, required even. If you think back to those lines in the Gospel According to John where Jesus pronounces the words— “It is finished,” or “It is accomplished,” it’s essential to realize  what has actually happened. Jesus is explicitly not referring to his horr...

  A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Proper 7, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector Fear Not: The Laughing, Harkening God of Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac Today, I’d like to ponder with you the story of Hagar and Ishmael, which has deep resonances for our contemporary moment and the life of Christian discipleship. You remember the backstory, of course. Sarah, knowing that she is unable to birth a child with Abraham and desiring to fulfill God’s promise, tells Abraham to take their servant Hagar as a surrogate. (Whether Hagar entered willingly into this arrangement we don’t know, but the power dynamics between master and servant are troubling to say the least). Hagar promptly gives birth to a son. Then, Sarah miraculously conceives and gives birth to Isaac. And in the opening of today’s passage we see Isaac and the unnamed (because he is of lower status) Ishmael playing and laughing together.  Perhaps a little etymology is in order. The nam...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Easter 7, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector Today’s readings contain echoes of the Feast of the Ascension celebrated on Thursday. In our reading from Acts, we have that picture of Jesus ascending to the right hand of the Father and the women and the disciples gathering together in prayer waiting to receive the power of the Holy Spirit. The bodily presence of Jesus departs (“And now I am no longer in the world”) so that God might dwell in the hearts of the disciples as the boundless energy of other-centered love. Some folks have objected that the Ascension, taken literally, is simply too odd to believe. It speaks of an out-moded “three-storey universe” that is no longer believable and therefore we should just drop the whole thing and maybe spend the seventh Sunday of Easter snuggled into the Church of the Holy Comforter with a nice cup of joe and Jane Pauley on the tube. Not so fast, I say. The As...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Easter 6, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean and Rector The Greek Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware is fond of reminding us that more than anything else, human beings are worshipping animals-- Homo adorans . More than tool makers, more than thinkers, what makes us truly human, what feeds us on the journey of becoming truly human human beings, is worship. And the interesting thing is that as worshipping animals, human beings always worship someone or something. We don’t have a choice about worshipping, but we do have a choice about what to worship, about whom to worship. And what we worship matters, because the powerful thing about worship is that over time we come to resemble more and more that which we worship.             When the boundary-crossing love of Jesus is at the center of our lives, when we dispose ourselves to God in Christ through the Holy Spir...

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Easter 5, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector Our passage from the Book of Acts for today centers on the martyrdom of Stephen, hailed by the tradition as the first Christian martyr. The parallels to Jesus’ own death on the cross are, of course, unmistakable. In Luke, Jesus on the way to cross meets violence not with violence but with forgiveness—“Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.” Mocked on the cross by one of the thieves, he ministers to the other even in the midst of incredible torment—“Truly I tell you today you will be with me in paradise.” And when the moment of his death comes, Jesus cries out with a loud voice and says, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Stephen’s death at the hands of the angry mob displays many of the same leitmotifs. The angry crowd licking its chops and rolling up their sleeves eager to lay into their scapegoated victim. The prayer of surrend...