Sermons by Sherry Deets
Sherry Deets is the current Rector of the Episcopal Church of the Trinity in Coatesville, PA.
Tiny Seeds of Love
Proper 6 Year B – June 16, 2024Mark 4:26-34 This morning we’re hearing the parable of the mustard seed. Eugene Peterson, somewhere, has called parables “narrative time bombs” and that is certainly what today’s parables are. They are meant to undermine our assumptions of what we think are the “givens” and even the “realities” that we accept without question and offer us a vision of something different. So, let’s look at our parables today. In the first parable,…
Outside is inside
3 Pentecost, Proper 5 – June 9, 2024Mark 3:20-35 It is still early in Jesus’ ministry; but already, he has driven out unclean spirits, healed the sick, eaten with sinners and chosen his disciples when we come to today’s story. He has mesmerized every crowd he’s come into contact with, stirring up such hope, excitement, and yearning in people’s hearts that they just can’t leave him alone. So they follow him to Nazareth and pour into the house where he’s…
Sabbath is created for life
2 Pentecost, Proper 4 – June 2, 2024Mark 2:23-3:6 Jesus and his disciples are walking along on their way to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. They are apparently hungry and so they pick some wheat as they walk through a grainfield and eat it on the way to synagogue. The Pharisees observe this and ask Jesus why he lets his followers break the laws of the sabbath. Jesus tells them a story they already know and likens himself to…
“reserve the right to get smarter”
Trinity Sunday – May 26, 2024John 3:1-17 Today in our church calendar, we celebrate Trinity Sunday – and we’re given, from John’s gospel, the story of Nicodemus and the very well known piece of scripture from John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The story of Nicodemus is a story about God’s love for the world.…
prayer is relationship
7 Easter – May 12, 2024John 17:6-19 For this seventh Sunday after Easter, the Revised Common Lectionary always gives us a portion of Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer”. It’s the culmination of his farewell discourse to his disciples. The setting is the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday. Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet, foreseen Judas’s betrayal, predicted Peter’s denial, promised his disciples the Holy Spirit, and offered them urgent words of instruction. Time is running out, and Jesus knows…
“abide in my love”
6 Easter – May 5, 2024John 15:9-17 Last Sunday we heard about vines. Jesus used a vivid image of a branch abiding in a vine. If the branch were to separate itself from the vine, it would wither and die. But if it simply stays connected, the vines aliveness flows into the branch and bears fruit through it. So, if we abide or remain in vital connection to Christ, the Spirit will flow with God’s aliveness in and through…
A Way
2 Easter – April 7, 2024John 20:19-31 “Do not doubt, but believe” Jesus tells us today. This story about Thomas is given to us every year on the Sunday after Easter. It is a resurrection story filled with the reality of human life. Thomas is asking to see the wounds of Jesus….the mark of the nails in his hands and the mark on his side. Thomas wanted to see Jesus’ wounds and put his fingers in them. And, Jesus…
Resurrection happens in the dark
Easter 2024 Happy Easter! So, this Easter we hear the resurrection story from Mark’s gospel, which I usually avoid, but using John’s version, because the ending to Mark is notoriously odd. In Mark, the tomb is empty (apart from the messenger), but nobody gets to see Jesus or touch the nail holes in his hands. There is no great commission, no recounting of the Hebrew Scriptures or a meal shared with travelers to Emmaus, and no intimate conversation with…
Do we wish to see Jesus?
5 Lent – March 17, 2024John 12:20-33 “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” The setting is Jerusalem, the occasion is Passover, and the people making the request are Gentiles, visiting the city for its traditional religious festivities. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” It sounds so simple. A straightforward request. But is it, really? Is it ever? Maybe it’s one of those questions that asks more than we could ever realize. Perhaps it’s an example of “be careful what you wish…
Snakes and wolves
4 Lent – March 10, 2024John 3:14-21 We have an interesting pairing of stories today – one from the Old Testament Book of Numbers, and one from John’s Gospel. In the Old Testament story, the Israelites, having lost patience yet again with the hardships of life in the desert, speak out against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” they ask. “For there is no food and no water,…
Your temple
3 Lent – March 3, 2024John 2:13-22 All four gospels include an account of Jesus’ disruption at the temple. Matthew, Mark and Luke all place this story at the end of Jesus’s ministry, sandwiching it between his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the parable of the tenants. John, however, puts the story at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, after the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana, which makes it one of his first public acts. Both of these…
sharing wounds
2 Lent – February 25, 2024Mark 8:31-38 Just before this part of the gospel of Mark that we hear today, Peter stumbles onto the truth about his teacher, about Jesus – “You are the Messiah”, Peter realizes. And now, whatever great aspirations the disciples attribute to the Messiah, Jesus shuts down. He tells them he must undergo great suffering and be rejected and be killed. But he will rise again. Peter wants none of it and takes Jesus aside…