http://127.0.0.1/~ericshepherd/trinity/trinity/index.php en-us Trinity Episcopal Church Sermons from Trinity Episcopal Church in Buffalo, New York. Sun, 19 Nov 2006 11:30:00 -0500 Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:30:00 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss tech@trinitybuffalo.org http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_18_1030.mp3 It doesn’t matter if we would rather be doing or we would rather be studying or listening, we have to do both and we have to do them in such a way that they are not dichotomized as either/or choices. Action and reflection, doing and learning, hospitality and advocacy, spiritual and prophetic, charitable and activist… they are not separate, distinct activities – they are one and the same. If we decide that we prefer one to the other, and we focus on only one…then we will lose the other. When we disconnect them or un-tether them in any way, we will, eventually, lose both. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_18_1030.mp3 Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:31:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_18_700.mp3 Suddenly we see with new vision the hierarchy of our priorities. Suddenly, we know what we care about most, and we are inspired to put our lives in order – giving more time and money to some things and less to others. Death, near death and crisis, all bring life into focus. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_18_700.mp3 Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:26:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_11_700.mp3 The ground floor of a spiritual practice involves arranging the furniture, so to speak, so that we get clear with ourselves about what to trust and what to pursue and what to embrace as REAL. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_11_700.mp3 Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:38:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_11_1030.mp3 It is never as black and white as we want it to be. It is never just about the good guys and the bad guys; because the good guys’ motivations and intention can be complicated too. There can be accidental good guys and accidental bad guys. The bad guys may have excellent reasons for acting the way they do… even when we are the victims who suffer from the behavior of the bad guys. Even though we are the victims they might have had excellent intentions or reasons. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_11_1030.mp3 Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:22:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_04_1030.mp3 Claims about God get totally intertwined with claims about the nation, and they become indistinguishable for many people, so that the nation or the constitution or the flag becomes the “ultimate” value to which people give their all. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_04_1030.mp3 Fri, 9 Jul 2010 16:52:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_04_700.mp3 So here is tonight’s punchline: God is always revealed through something. There is always a text, whether the text is composed of words or dirt or a butterfly or the lips of a lover or the touch of a friend or the kindness of a stranger or a deep inspirational insight that appears from nowhere at the necessary moment. God is revealed, always revealed, through something. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_07_04_700.mp3 Fri, 9 Jul 2010 16:44:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_27_1030.mp3 My point being, Jesus was not some dirty homeless beggar. He was an organizer. He was strategic. He was a reformer with an agenda and goals. He was notorious for breaking the purity rules. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_27_1030.mp3 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:41:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_27_700.mp3 Don’t get me wrong. Adventures will happen, they come our way whether we want them or not – just like the home-happy Hobbit swept up in the adventures of J.R.R. Tolkien. The dramas and traumas of injury, betrayal, and alienation; success, failure, and tragedy; new beginnings, sudden changes, and death; they all create small and large adventures through which we ride the waves of jubilance and despair. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_27_700.mp3 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:38:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_20_700.mp3 Come dance with me, you God… is a narcissistic ecstasy in a universe of privilege among those who have the time and money to engorge themselves with god-shots and personal enlightenment. But there is a dance floor in between these two extremes. Somewhere between No God and My God, and on a plane between Pure Reason and Pure Self-indulgence, we can dance with the holy. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_20_700.mp3 Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:01:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_20_1030.mp3 So just like Bird Flu jumped from chickens to the human genome, Jesus forces the Legion of demons to hop like a flea from Big Urban to Miss Piggy, Pumbaa, Porky, Wilbur, Babe and the three little pigs. By the way, it is another non-coincidental detail that the swine herd happened to be nearby. The swine are a symbol – a metaphor – that what is going on in this story is something taking place among foreigners… those who are spiritually unclean. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_20_1030.mp3 Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:16:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_13_1030.mp3 There are a lot of people who simply do not like to say the “F-word.” They would rather say we have… “ a challenge” or “an opportunity to do better” or “we are struggling to overcome a problem” or some other euphemism for f…f…f…failure. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_13_1030.mp3 Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:59:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/WS_30140.mp3 Get quiet. Get still. Breathe deeply, as we do here, inhaling slowly through your nose and exhaling slowly through your mouth. Get in touch with your sense of awe – another sense by the way (I think we’re up to ten). Get in touch with your awe and feel the beauty through your awe. When you are in awe and filled with the sense of beauty surrounding you, begin to imagine what kind of a process led to such a creation – blow your mind; let it out like a fishing line with a whopper on it. Let that baby run and run and run until it can go no farther. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/WS_30140.mp3 Tue, 8 Jun 2010 12:56:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_06_1030.mp3 Was it the bird! One of the worst things that Liberal Protestant Christianity did throughout the twentieth century, in its effort to be more credible to an increasingly rationalistic world, was try to explain away Biblical miracles – or any number of difficult Biblical expressions. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_06_1030.mp3 Tue, 8 Jun 2010 12:47:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_01_1030.mp3 So what is your story? It is a question worthy of deep pursuit. We all have such stories, and they run deep through our lives like the warp and woof of a woven spread. They may be woven so neatly into our thoughts that we are not even aware of the power and influence they have upon us. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_06_01_1030.mp3 Fri, 4 Jun 2010 18:07:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_16_1030.mp3 But God is like the White River, we can walk in the shallows without much to worry about and then all of a sudden, get swallowed up. Wham! You can get sucked up in a powerful love and it is as if the waters have closed up over your face and you can’t breath; and you are in a disorienting world where its hard to navigate up from down; and it’s more scary than it is exciting; more alarming than it is reassuring. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_16_1030.mp3 Mon, 17 May 2010 16:58:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_16_700.mp3 Some people also seem more capable of expanding the realm of mentally acuity than others: New ideas, pluralistic thinking, exploring beyond traditional categories, moving beyond black-and-white thinking and holding ambiguity without anxiety all require a certain degree of resilience – the ability to bend and dance and balance awkwardly from time to time. It is a capacity we can increase for ourselves with practice. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_16_700.mp3 Mon, 17 May 2010 16:53:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/WS_30129.mp3 Wellness is found in the pool of stillness located here (heart)… right here. It is not competitive. It is not dog-eat-dog. It is not magic. It is not mysterious. It is not secret. Stillness. When we allow ourselves enough time in the day; and we make room within our life-style to get still; and we practice it enough to get comfortable with sitting alone by the pool of stillness within us; then we will get to a place where all that other stuff – all the things we thought would make us well – begins to gently fall away like pedals of a three-day rose. As they fall away we get close to what’s left. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/WS_30129.mp3 Fri, 14 May 2010 17:27:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_09_700.mp3 The economy of God operates on a different principle. The economy of God is fueled by abundance. Abundance is the joyful state of copious, even over-sufficient supply, of what is required for wellness. Let me repeat that, because it is a little different than scarcity and choice. Abundance is the copious, even over-sufficient supply, of what is required for wellness…for wellness. Cam MIller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_09_700.mp3 Thu, 13 May 2010 19:26:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_02_1030.mp3 It’s understandable: we hate death. Death is like a raspberry seed stuck in our teeth. It doesn’t matter how magnificent and beautiful the day, the month, the year, the life… just the idea that death is still inevitable and a ghostly presence in our midst, makes us miserable. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_02_1030.mp3 Thu, 6 May 2010 19:14:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_02_700.mp3 What is spirituality if not listening? Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years… Listen to carrion — put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come… Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_05_02_700.mp3 Thu, 6 May 2010 18:41:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_25_1030.Mp3 How do you keep score? How do you know when you have won or lost? How do you measure success? Do you use an economic text? Do you use a hedonist text? Do you use a business text? Do you use a competition text? Do you use a text written by an author or poet or screen-writer? What is your text and who wrote it? I encourage you to think about this think about it hard and deeply. It makes all the difference in the world. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_25_1030.Mp3 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:48:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_25_700.Mp3 That desire – to touch and be touched, to know and be known, to hold and be held – is the same desire whether it is for God or another human. The Greeks may have given them different names, and Western theology may have called them categorically different, but if you have ever longed to love or be loved, then you know what it is to desire God. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_25_700.Mp3 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:42:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_18_700.Mp3 So there are these moments we have; the grandeur of “the dark emptiness contained in every next moment” as the Rogers’ poem pictures them. But we spend our moments so completely in the outer world around us that the internal, mystery-laden and forever secret moments, like the one right now – right now…here…this one – we miss. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_18_700.Mp3 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:33:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_04_1030.Mp3 Resurrection, the kind we are celebrating here today, is not profitable and it is not measurable or quantifiable. So, if we want to see it, or hear the music that God hasn’t released yet, we have to have the imagination to perceive it; we have to have the openness to be surprised; we have to have the willingness to make ourselves vulnerable in ways that make us uncomfortable Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_04_1030.Mp3 Thu, 8 Apr 2010 14:51:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_02_700.Mp3 When we do not get this story right, horrible, tragic, murderous things happen. And by “getting it right” I do not mean how we interpret it – there are a gazillion ways to interpret this story. By “getting it right” I mean understanding what it is and what it is not. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_02_700.Mp3 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 19:50:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_01_700.Mp3 Often, very often, I am asked about Communion, “Do you think it’s real?” It is a question with an anticipated short answer, as in a “Yes” or “No”... Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_04_01_700.Mp3 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 19:45:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_31_1030.Mp3 There is a difference between Healing and Curing. Curing may not always be possible but Healing is never beyond our grasp... Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_31_1030.Mp3 Fri, 2 Apr 2010 19:39:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_28_700.Mp3 Surrender is one of the answers I have with me in the dark, a strong mast to which I can lash myself in a storm. It is no easy answer however. I resist it tooth and nail every time. There has not been one time in my life when the concept of surrender occurred to me early on in a difficult struggle. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_28_700.Mp3 Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:23:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_28_1030.Mp3 This is a tale of two Jesus’. Actually, there are a gazillion Jesus’. Every one of us has our own personal monitor upon which we project our own personal Jesus… our own personal world for that matter. The trick is to keep track of the truth that what we see on our monitor is not the world – it is only the way we see the world. The world, the truth, the reality is not seen by us – not even those who have the biggest, widest monitors a lowly human being can have. I don’t even know if a composite of all those individual, personal projections is what truly is, or if truth lies too far beyond the capacity of humans to ever discern Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_28_1030.Mp3 Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:15:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_21_700.Mp3 There is indeed a spiritual relationship with Earth and those of us who live in the city are always in danger of losing it. We are always in danger of forgetting, of growing distant, of becoming disconnected, of turning deaf and blind and mute when it comes to loving and being loved by Earth. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_21_700.Mp3 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:51:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_21_1030.Mp3 He could only cast blame outward, insisting that his imprisoned life was caused by others, and he had not the tiniest glint of its dire causes. He knew not from whence or whom it came. Judas had no clue how to escape it and the pain was escruciating. He was he thought the last one left who could see the unconscienable waste and self- indulgence that had become Jesus Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_21_1030.Mp3 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:38:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_14_1030.Mp3 That is the point in the story, where our attention often drops off and we take our eye off the ball. We get caught up with the Dad’s abundant generosity: either in amazement and appreciation of it, or uncomfortable with what the youngest son got away with and sympathetic to the oldest son who seems to have gotten screwed by the whole thing. But the story is not over. The Dad also WELCOMES the oldest son… WELCOMES him IN. The Dad reaches across the angry, bitter resentment of hurt and indignation, and invites the oldest son to stay connected. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_14_1030.Mp3 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:57:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_07_700.Mp3 God is not within our grasp. The holiness of life is not within our comprehension. As an infinitesimal little piece of the cosmos, we are in no position to perceive or comprehend or know the infinite whole. The best we can do is stutter in awe or squint in bewildered confusion and use pithy metaphors to point with. Poetry does the same. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_07_700.Mp3 Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:58:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_07_1030.Mp3 When the veil between the holy and the human gets thin or is removed altogether, there is no religion. Religion, Brand Name is utterly, totally irrelevant at that moment. Religion is about ideas and rituals and sacraments and methodologies and organizations and all those things we need and cherish and hate. There is nothing wrong with all that human paraphernalia but when it comes to an encounter with GOD, it is utterly irrelevant. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_03_07_1030.Mp3 Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:25:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_28_1030.Mp3 So this was Jesus’ tour group: Elrod, Darnell, Henry, Sonja and Ted. Their first stop: A radical fair housing group rehabbing an old house. The inside of the house had been gutted and was divided by stud-walls you could still see through. It was so cold they could see their breath and feel the wind when it whipped up. Jesus told them how the organization was employing neighborhood unemployed young men and women, training them in the old fashioned way of apprenticing. Each house had one or two skilled workers mentoring the neighborhood kids. They accessed as few federal dollars as possible so they would not be beholding to the politicians or regulators. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_28_1030.Mp3 Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:01:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_21_1030.Mp3 Jesus was stunned into silence. The images and emotions of the day were blowing through his brain at a hundred miles an hour. He was so full of excitement he felt as though he would explode. Then, he told us, looking our way for the first time but only out of the corner of his eye, (never turning his face in our direction) that he heard that whisper again – or was it a memory? Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_21_1030.Mp3 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:36:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_14_700.Mp3 All wounds find their depth and can go no deeper, and after a time work their way back to the surface, free like an air bubble rising up from the mud. That is what is so miraculous about the heart. It absorbs so many wounds, so much pain, and then, sooner or later, spits them out again. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_14_700.Mp3 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:30:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_14_1030.Mp3 In such moments we do not really trust ourselves. We just cannot allow ourselves to be present to miraculous moments. We start thinking. We go right from awe to thought without passing go. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010_02_14_1030.Mp3 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:53:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-24-700.Mp3 So… I guess what I am suggesting is that we pry open our 21st century secularized and highly sophisticated thinking; and come down off our high horse, and get down and play in the mud of our existence, and mix it up with a lot of very human-centric kinds of imagination. Get down, get basic, get elemental, get primitive, get very poetic and human with God. Bring God a little closer. Put your tiny little fingers in that massive hand of God that has held a universe or two. Place your face right in between those massive celestial breasts and say “Amen.” Cuddle up, whisper out loud, and bring God humanly closer. It’s just an exercise. It’s just imagination. It’s just poetry. But heck, so often we live into what we imagine. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-24-700.Mp3 Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:51:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-17-700.Mp3 Well what do you say to a ten-year-old boy who is scared about the global financial crisis that has already made his family’s tenuous hold on life so much more insecure? Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-17-700.Mp3 Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:29:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-17-1030.Mp3 It was just a simple act. It was just a simple act of solidarity. It was just a whisper in the wind. Truthfully, we did not have any idea why we were going there – we only thought we knew. Isn’t that so often the way? Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-17-1030.Mp3 Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:19:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-01-jesusinbuffalo.Mp3 Jesus hit a guy and broke his nose. I was just as surprised as you are to hear that Jesus hit a guy but I saw it with my own eyes. It was at Nietzsche’s on Allen Street and it was late, one or one-thirty maybe. We were lucky, to tell you the truth, that we got out of there before the cops came. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-01-jesusinbuffalo.Mp3 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:45:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-01-sexwithangel.Mp3 My thoughts stuttered over the notion of a favorite phone sex line. He regaled his friend with a litany of descriptions of disembodied voices, each with their own name and special abilities, with whom he had shared sexual intimacy. It was quite the life, Griff explained to his silent companion. He lived on Chinese food and pizza, often delivered along with the cocaine. If he needed groceries or alcohol he had them delivered as well. Within the walls of his domicile he was king of the Wild Things, and this made him exceedingly pleased. His happiness and contentment seemed impossibly complete and for months and months he slept, ate, drank, tooted and cavorted without discovering his fill. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2010-01-01-sexwithangel.Mp3 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:31:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-27-1030.mp3 Every single one of us here has had an encounter with God… or the holy… or the mystical… or whatever doggone thing you want to call it. But even though we have all encountered God, few of us are willing to talk about it; few of us will even acknowledge it to ourselves. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-27-1030.mp3 Wed, 6 Jan 2010 15:44:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-24-1030.mp3 The Christmas story calls us to get up, to leave that place, to come again into a life that is pregnant with possibilities… whether at ninety-five years old or one-year old. True, they are not the same possibilities at ninety-five as at one, but we are always capable of giving birth to yet one more new love, one more new hope, one more new vision, one more new perspective, one more new possibility. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-24-1030.mp3 Wed, 6 Jan 2010 15:39:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-24-500.mp3 One small community, sharing food and money and resources with other small communities elsewhere, can empower change that ripples through nations. We know it is true: we’ve seen it and felt it and been touched by it somewhere, sometime, somehow. The smallest ray of loving-kindness has righted the wreck of despair and unexpectedly turned our lives around. It’s happened that way – not in Hollywood and Disney -- but to people I am seeing in front of me throughout this congregation here tonight. It doesn’t take much light to enlighten the darkness. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-24-500.mp3 Wed, 6 Jan 2010 15:30:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-20-700.mp3 We need one another. We need one another like we need oxygen. We do not learn to believe in ourselves until we have experienced someone else believing in us. And if we have never known, from the outside-in, such a kindness, such a love, such a gentleness of inward touch, then we may never get to know it from the inside-out. It is possible of course, for those who have been emotionally starved to death from a very young age, to scratch their way up out of such deprivation, but it requires a miraculous healing, a spiritual healing… not self-healing. Self-healing only comes after spiritual healing. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-20-700.mp3 Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:05:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-13-700.mp3 If we choose to suck on the straw of resentment, we will shrivel. If we choose to stroke the raw wounds of regret, we shrivel. If we choose to tremble in the shadow of fears, we shrivel. If we choose to hide in a prison of guilt, we shrivel. If we choose to grimace in secret isolation, we shrivel. If we choose to carry the globe upon our shoulders, we shrivel. If we choose to remain a victim, we shrivel. If we choose to warm ourselves on embers of blame, we shrivel. If we choose to insist the world play by our rules, we shrivel. If we choose to gargle with the bile of mistrust, we shrivel. If we choose to be rigid and unyielding, we shrivel. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-13-700.mp3 Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:35:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-13-1030.mp3 Mary, it says in Luke’s birth narrative, ponders in her heart all that the shepherds and angels tell her. Maybe she did, but as an adult child, her son, Jesus, keeps Mary at a distance. Only in Church mythology, and high doctrines of Mary created by the church centuries after the fact, is there any kind of special relationship between them. We like to look back at that birth through the eyes of everything we imagine we know about Jesus, and we like to wonder about his birth and his mother and his childhood, because we see and hear him as a man who changed the course of history – who in fact, whether we know it or not, acknowledge it or not, change your life and mine. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-13-1030.mp3 Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:30:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-06-1030.mp3 If we could somehow plug in a laptop to each of our brains – and it won’t be long until it is possible – and we looked at each other’s monitors, we would be surprised to see that we do not all see the same things. Some people’s monitor would be a collage of colorful details, while other’s would be focused upon one giant image that might even be in grayscale. One person would see the pulpit as bigger than it is while someone else would see the altar in dimensions much grander that it measures. On some of your laptops, I would appear as a giant while on others I would be the same size as everyone else, and on still others, I would appear as a little cartoon character yammering away. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-12-06-1030.mp3 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:59:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-22-700.mp3 Stopping to talk with a panhandler, looking him or her in the eyes, responding to him or her like you would any person you know who has asked you for something, whether or not you decide to contribute a coin… that is a small act of love. Pausing, I mean really pausing your body and mind, to look at the salesclerk or bus driver or cashier and breaking out of seeing them in their utilitarian role that is there to help you get your task done… pausing, to make a real human connection, even if only for thirty seconds – that is an act of small love. Affirming a teenager that is not your kid, affirming them in their humanity and in their personhood and offering them an intentional show of dignity and respect, that is an act of small love. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-22-700.mp3 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:22:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-22-1030.mp3 We all have them, small or large wounds inflicted by accident or on purpose by someone in our past – distant or near. Resentment is something we nurse. It is not a gulp but a sip… a sip, sip, sip, sip, sip, sip that keeps alive a little coal of anger inside that might otherwise burn out or be forgotten but that we draw on now and again with a kind of perverse pleasure. Some of us do it more than others but everyone I know about has resentment of some kind, from something or someone, somewhere. The thing is, it is impossible feel gratitude and resentment at the same time. It is like oil and water that will not stay together. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-22-1030.mp3 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:11:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-15-1030.mp3 It’s an odd thing really: I look at a building like Trinity or a structure like the Hoover dam and what I see is its frailty, while someone else will perceive the magnificence of human capacity. On the other hand, I look up into the stars under a remote Canadian sky, and feel exuberant joy at my infinitesimal stature in the cosmos. Yet that same person who took pleasure in the capacity of human ingenuity, might feel anxious about our obvious and total insignificance beneath the sparkling dome of the sky. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-15-1030.mp3 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:46:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-8-700.mp3 Let me tell you this: that turbulence and those seeming dark forces can in fact turn out to be harbingers of light. “Go warn the children of God, tell them of the terrible speed of mercy.” I love that line. Ironically, mercy comes upon the crest of tension, forcefully upon the waves of turbulence, even within the innards of internal woe and conflict. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-8-700.mp3 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:41:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-8-1030.mp3 Abundance is a state of mind. It is possible, and you’ve seen it happen, that someone can be surrounded by tremendous good fortune and good company and nonetheless feel bereft and utterly scorned by life. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-8-1030.mp3 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:33:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-1-700.mp3 Our hearts know where the dark corner is, and we have hidden there crouched in a stance of self-protection. If we stay there long enough the heart gets “hard and parched up.” Like arthritic joints held too long in the same position, a crouched heart will harden to protect itself, and once hardened, will become parched up. When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-11-1-700.mp3 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:28:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-25-700.mp3 We do not have to detach from our bodies to encounter the holy. We do not have to renounce the flesh or try to let go the body and soar with the spirit, in order to exercise the spiritual. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-25-700.mp3 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:14:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-25-1030.mp3 It is us, just at another moment in history. We are those people who have forgotten who we are and whose we are. That table there, or another like it someplace else, has the power to remind us who we are and whose we are… and to reshape us. We need a table that brings us back to who we are: Creatures made to live in community and connected by a power greater than ourselves. It doesn’t have to be this one. Trinity has no claim on any one of us. Community is chosen. You choose which table and which community. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-25-1030.mp3 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:03:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-18-700.mp3 We may not be authors or poets or musicians or any kind of specialist at all… We may be clumsy with words or pitiful at description and woefully untalented. But… every single one of us can learn to listen, can learn to see and hear, the extraordinary in the ordinary. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-18-700.mp3 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:57:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-18-1030.mp3 I do not mean “deny” the story. It happened. Jesus came. Jesus acted. Jesus was executed. But the question is how that makes sense for us? How does that have meaning for us in our world? We don’t interpret life through an Isaiah 53 lens, nor through and Abraham and Isaac lens. That’s why civil religion is more powerful for us than Christianity. That’s why Disney is more powerful for us than Christianity. That’s why Capitalism is more powerful for us than Christianity. It’s not Christianity’s fault – the problems lies with any and all generations that do not reinterpret Jesus through its own powerful lenses. Experience is the lens and we must reinterpret Jesus, and therefore Christianity itself, through the lens of our own common experience. We can’t take religious history, or the history of Christian theology, and suck it like a straw from the past and consume it as if it will somehow feed us all these years later. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-18-1030.mp3 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:48:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-11-700.mp3 To be present. To allow ourselves to be present with one another. You see, don’t you, how deeply spiritual that is. It is mindfulness in the extreme. So that is what happens, or what can happen. These two conflicting forms of resistance to death, the one who is dying and those who will go on living, allow the creeping recognition of powerlessness to bring them into acceptance of the inevitable and then… and then… there is nothing to do but be present to and for one another. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-11-700.mp3 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:42:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-11-1030.mp3 So who are we in the Jesus story? We’re not God. We’re not Jesus. We’re not the disciples. We’re not the crowds. We’re not the poor bastards begging for health or food. We’re not the Judeans clamoring for a Liberator. We’re not the Temple clergy snarling at the upstart rabbi. Who are we? We have a silent part with no lines. We are the scenery that shapes the story in every act but is never recognized or observed. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-11-1030.mp3 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:27:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-04-700.mp3 Like Seinfeld, Trinity@7 is about nothing. We come here to dawdle in candlelight, be held in the music, and be cradled by verse and prose we might otherwise never read or listen to. We come to dawdle – to do nothing. Most of us, when we enter that door over there, have to spend several minutes, or even more, fighting through our learned resistance to dawdling. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-04-700.mp3 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:52:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-04-1030.mp3 Jesus’ teaching on divorce is a truth about all of us: we are all connected to one another and we are all connected to the Creation and we cannot be untangled…ever. We are… interdependent…all of us…everyone…Period. When we recognize and stand in the powerlessness of our solitariness, Jesus tells us and the Pharisees… when we recognize that we have no dowry or status or achievements to offer – only then will we finally be open to God. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-10-04-1030.mp3 Tue, 6 Oct 2009 19:05:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-09-27-1030.mp3 So, if you want to believe in Hell as real estate, as an eternal punishment by a vindictive and parsimonious God, go right ahead. But please, if you are going to believe such a thing… at least use images from our own experience; images from Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Cambodia, Rwanda and Sudan. Why stick with an ancient trash dump when we have so many more graphic images, from within our own generations, of how human beings create hell for one another. I for one reject the idea of Hell. I think it is absurd, personally. I can’t make sense of the notion of Hell. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-09-27-1030.mp3 Fri, 2 Oct 2009 19:34:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-09-13-1030.Mp3 You see, a lot of church-people think that what we are doing here is supposed to be about Jesus – or even God. I don’t think so. What we are doing here is supposed to be about us. Jesus and God are more than capable of fending for themselves, and there is nothing that you or I can say or do that will bring us closer to Jesus or God. And what we know about Jesus or God, in any real sense, might just fill a thimble. For those that don’t sew, that’s a very teeny tiny amount. We are humble human beings, or at least sometimes humble. What we get to know about the big, bad mysteries of Life and God and supernatural stuff, is really very small. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-09-13-1030.Mp3 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:06:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-09-06-1030.Mp3 But look, we all have serious baggage, the dark kind. We all have prejudices rooted in ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, age, nationality, even profession. They are dark spots in otherwise wonderful people that keep us apart. The point is not to be someone without such baggage, no one is without such baggage. The point is to be open to seeing and feeling the baggage we carry, and to be willing to unload it when the opportunity comes. Indeed, we can unload such baggage. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-09-06-1030.Mp3 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:53:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-08-30-1030.Mp3 The goal of humanly created environments is constant comfort, merciless equilibrium, utter protection from too little warmth or too much heat. Constantly regulated environments that guard us from discomfort, protect us from insects, delight our nostrils with only yummy aromas, calm our fears, wrap us in safety and lull us to…a kind of waking sleep. That is why we like storms, even though they scare us and threaten us, because they wake us up! Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-08-30-1030.Mp3 Fri, 4 Sep 2009 14:52:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-07-05-1030.Mp3 I have said it before and you will hear me say it again and again… No one is here by accident. I do NOT mean “Everything happens for a reason.” In fact I do not believe that everything happens for a reason any more than I believe that wealth and power is a sign of God’s blessing – which is the ever-popular theology of Capitalism. What I mean is, you and I are here to carry on what Ezekiel promised: They shall know there has been a prophet among them. You and I have been chosen, or invited if you prefer, for prophetic witness; and, in order to succeed as prophets we must be nestled, must be nurtured, in the womb of community. That is what this is, by the way. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-07-05-1030.Mp3 Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:26:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-06-28-1030.Mp3 So, when you tell me, for example, that you have seen your long dead uncle in a dream or vision, I won’t think that is weird. I hear stuff like that all the time. I have even had vague experiences of such things myself. But don’t ask me to believe or disbelieve your vision. I will hear it and receive it and accept it as part of you, and help you explore it and discover the meaning of it with you; but don’t ask me to see it as proof of anything… or to use your experience to bolster my own beliefs… or proclaim your experience as an example of how God wants us to vote Republican or believe in the doctrine of the Trinity or support x, y and z. It is your experience not mine. When it is my experience, and I see old weird Uncle Ed, then, then I need to account for it and its meaning. You see what I mean by agnostic? Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-06-28-1030.Mp3 Thu, 2 Jul 2009 18:14:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-06-21-1030.Mp3 Before we get to that place we are desperately rowing, rowing, rowing away from God in the midst of a frightening storm. But the storm, it turns out, is not all around us but utterly within us. Yes, there are dangers. Yes, we may be tossed by a rough sea. Yes, the conditions around us may be threatening. But the storm is within, and when we face the storms that around us with a calm within us, we discover even the humor of our situation. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-06-21-1030.Mp3 Thu, 2 Jul 2009 17:40:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-24-1030.Mp3 So next time you are driving down 219 or the 400 and you see a long-legged old crow hopping over to munch on a dead skunk, don’t be thinking “Yuk!” – roll down your window and yell, “Bon a petit!” In the end it doesn’t much matter how it happens, whether it is via a short straw or a decisive act of intention, you and I are sanctified by what we do… or not. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-24-1030.Mp3 Tue, 9 Jun 2009 19:21:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-17-1030.Mp3 The likelihood is: that while most of us may have met or brushed up against our “Higher Power” once or twice, or have had wee inklings here and there of God’s presence in the world; we were probably not awakened from a bad dream like Scrooge or a born-again gardener in the form of “The Changed Man” poem. Where does that leave us? If we are not in love with god, utterly fixed upon God as the object of our desire the way Scripture so often presumes, or the mystics imagine, where does that leave us? Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-17-1030.Mp3 Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:56:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-10-1030.Mp3 You and I, in community with one another, share a quest that requires an energetic and spirited effort – it requires intention and thoughtfulness and downright hard work. And always, it is a shared quest. So much has changed and much is changing in and around us. It has not become simpler but more complex; not easier but more strenuous. That is why baptism is a communal event – one in which we promise to support the one being baptized and his or her family to do what it requires a whole community to do: nurture and challenge and strengthen. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-10-1030.Mp3 Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:27:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-03-1030.Mp3 We do not have to get into the practice of surrender, without a doubt we can lead a fine life without it. But if we want to have a spiritual life, if we want to get deeper, it’s all about surrender. I wonder about this… I wonder about the fact that even though I know that surrender is an abiding truth, why I still resist it so dog-gone much. I wonder about an alternative, even now, I still wonder if there is an alternative to surrender. I know there isn’t, but I still wonder about it. It’s like that joke with the punch line: “Is there anybody else up there?” Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-05-03-1030.Mp3 Fri, 8 May 2009 16:03:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-25-1030.mp3 And that is the choice before us, always, at every turn: We can choose to easily embrace the change in our lives and find out what good thing will come from it, or we can be dragged along with the current having – perhaps a toned down version – of a temper tantrum in the belly of a whale. And we’re all familiar with both responses – the times in our lives when we have dug in our heels, scrunched up our faces and said, ‘No!’ And the times when we’ve taken a deep breath, smiled, and said, ‘Okay.’ Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-25-1030.mp3 Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:33:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-25-0700.mp3 "You are the journey, and the journey's end." Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-25-0700.mp3 Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:30:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-18-1030.mp3 Shhhh…somewhere floating around in here in this sanctuary, in your pew, in this moment -- is an invitation being whispered to you… As quietly as a butterfly’s wing ripples the air, so is a whisper landing within this moment, spoken to you. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-18-1030.mp3 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:43:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-11-1030.mp3 Maybe you've been to church, where the tendency to use alienating words and phrases that have no meaning in the common speech is really quite normal, to say nothing of blithely bandying about words whose meanings have changed in the common parlance, and words that carry so much baggage with them that perhaps they are better off left in the closet. Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-11-1030.mp3 Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:51:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-11-0700.mp3 "There must be a turning; there must be an inner transformation. This has nothing to do with our outer life. The change takes place within us. The whole experience is an inner experience; it is one of consciousness, but when it takes place, it affects our entire outer experience." - Joel Goldsmith Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-11-0700.mp3 Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:39:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-04-1030.mp3 Written sometime during the height of Jerusalem's darkest night, the theory goes that Jeremiah, responding to God's whisper, wrote down the core of hope he had been given to hold as if guarding the last tiny candle's wavering flame against a bitter and brutal wind. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2009-01-04-1030.mp3 Sun, 4 Jan 2009 22:41:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-15-1030.mp3 And so, one dark and lonely night, like so many others of its kind, God reached down and touched the earth, as God has done so many times before and since. A child was born, Who had the potential of the kingdom of God in his eyes He was perfect, and beautiful, Just like Moses was, Just like Joey and Jr. and little Ruthie were, And he grew up to live a life that changed the world Just like we do. Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-15-1030.mp3 Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:00:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-24-0500.mp3 Rosa Park’s story began when she decided, for whatever reasons she chose that moment, to sit down in the White section of the bus. Rev. King’s story started at the moment, whenever it was, that he went from being a pastor to becoming a prophet. There is always a beginning…there is always as start. When was yours? Has it begun yet? Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-24-0500.mp3 Thu, 25 Dec 2008 03:00:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-24-pageant.mp3 This year the Christmas Pageant was more of a Christmas Prayer, so here it is - Sare did a reading for the audio, and the pdf and the full text can be found below. We hope it will be as moving for you as it was for us. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-24-pageant.mp3 Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:00:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-21-1030.mp3 In the modern media, angels are pretty - disarmingly so. According to Hollywood angels are beautiful, attractive, and they just instantly draw you in. They smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Not so, it would seem, with the angels of God. Perhaps they’re beautiful - I wouldn’t want to rule that out - but still, I think they must be terrifying, too, or the first words out of their mouths, nearly every time we see one wouldn’t have to be: 'Don’t be afraid.' Maybe throwing in an 'I come in peace,' for good measure. Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-21-1030.mp3 Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:23:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-21-0700.mp3 There is a word here for you and me. There is something on the air tonight for just you and me to hear. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-21-0700.mp3 Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:19:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-14-1030.mp3 Shhhh…. The cervix of the rational world is growing thin, and making way for our birth into the mystical dimension of the cosmos. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-14-1030.mp3 Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:15:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-14-0700.mp3 All religions have stories. Spiritual wisdom is not taught so much as it is told. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-14-0700.mp3 Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:11:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-07-0830.mp3 Invite into your life this advent space enough to ask the question: what would it look like if my focus was on living life abundantly? Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-07-0830.mp3 Sun, 7 Dec 2008 19:17:01 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-07-1030.mp3 The whole cosmos belongs to God so all of life, including politics, is within the spiritual realm. Of course, you and I have been taught, have been nursed actually, on just the reverse notion: the spiritual is but one category of life alongside all the other categories of life, and these categories can all be segregated into compartments that neither know nor disturb one another. That is how the atomic bomb was made – with the makers of each part compartmentalized so they wouldn’t know or envision the end result. That is how Terrorist cells work, they compartmentalize small cells of agents who do not know each other or communicate with each other until the final act of terror, if even then. That is how an alcoholic or drug abuser keeps the abuse and the consequences of the abuse from being noticed. The abuser compartmentalizes his or her life so that work, family, and groups of friends can’t compare notes and thus risk a confrontation that might endanger the abusers consumption habits. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-07-1030.mp3 Sun, 7 Dec 2008 19:12:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-07-0700.mp3 This is an invitation, and a challenge: allow yourself the privilege (or challenge yourself to attempt) to escape the consumerism of the pre-Christmas season, and engage instead in a sacred time of opening to the Universal Spirit that is around us and in us in every moment. Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-12-07-0700.mp3 Sun, 7 Dec 2008 19:08:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-23-1030.mp3 So witness the lilies of the field and how they grow… While full of poetic images, Jesus’ wisdom peels back to reveal two eyes staring at us from the center of the universe like a cat in the dark. And a voice whispers two lines, each its own mantra. “Do not worry about your life.” Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about your life. And the other…“Strive first for the kingdom of God.” Strive first for the kingdom of God. Strive first for the kingdom of God. Strategically, if we strive first of the kingdom of God, in fact, we will not worry much about our own lives. So that is where I will begin. Now I know that sounds terribly religious and not very credible, a lot like the high calorie/low nutrient theological cotton candy most of us flee from. But give me just a moment and an open mind to see if maybe it holds more than meets the eye. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-23-1030.mp3 Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:04:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-23-0700.mp3 Whatever you are passionate about, really, that will do. It is already the thing that ties you to this world with all of its hopes and fears to people with all of their quirks preferences and different ways of being Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-23-0700.mp3 Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:00:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-16-0700.mp3 …Angie was his guardian angel, whom God had placed there at the right moment to save his life. I sat there in the steam room and contemplated the paradox of a phone sex operator as an angel. I had so many questions I wanted to ask, but I was already a voyeur, a total stranger……Angie was his guardian angel, whom God had placed there at the right moment to save his life. I sat there in the steam room and contemplated the paradox of a phone sex operator as an angel. I had so many questions I wanted to ask, but I was already a voyeur, a total stranger… Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-16-0700.mp3 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:51:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-16-1030.mp3 Preserving the principal may be what an endowment is supposed to do, but it is not the mark of fidelity for a community of faith that says it is an agent of the love of God and that its mission is to name and heal the wounds of injustice. In a time of crisis, spiritual wellness is discovered and displayed by taking the risk to love more boldly, and act more vigorously in solidarity with those who have been most vulnerable. That is our call, yours and mine, and Jesus is holding our feet to that fire. We are not, we are not in the preservation business. We are not, we are not the custodians of an historic building, nor of a particular body of ritual and worship, language or music. We are, we are the stewards of the gospel and love of God made know through community. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-16-1030.mp3 Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:30:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-16-0830.mp3 But then again, story after story where God is the reaper reminds us that God gathers it all, good and bad, and after all is said and done, which perhaps happens every time the clock ticks, God gently blows away the chaff that has been gathered with the wheat, because underneath the violence, distain, hatred and contempt that has been gathered, there is some measure, hiding underneath, of love, peace, reconciliation, hope, justice, and forgiveness. Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-16-0830.mp3 Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:30:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-09-0830.mp3 He didn’t come, and he didn’t come, and the first century Christians, who really thought they’d see the day themselves, were left like a group of bridesmaids holding a lantern aloft, looking into the night and waiting, waiting, waiting for the bridegroom. Until finally, they went to sleep, because really – who knew when he was going to come? Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-09-0830.mp3 Sun, 9 Nov 2008 17:15:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-09-1030.mp3 The 5th core principle of stewardship is Interdependence. In some ways interdependence is the most obvious. All we need do is look at the world around us and the universe of micro-organisms within us to recognize that God, the creator of it all, wove this entire cosmos of Life into a web of inter-connected relationships. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-09-1030.mp3 Sun, 9 Nov 2008 17:12:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-09-0700.mp3 Have you ever been grateful? Not greeting card grateful, a timely thank-you at Thanksgiving, but spontaneously, unambiguously, irrepressibly grateful? Sare Gordy http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-09-0700.mp3 Sun, 9 Nov 2008 17:06:00 -0500 Podcasts http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-01-1030.mp3 You see, knowing – feeling or actually experiencing – God’s adoration of us, is the source of gratitude. It is simply impossible to touch that place within ourselves where we can feel and accept that God adores us as God’s very own, and not experience gratitude. And when we experience gratitude we are moved, even compelled, to care for and nurture that which we have been given. Cam Miller http://www.trinitybuffalo.org/podcasts/sermons/2008-11-01-1030.mp3 Sun, 2 Nov 2008 20:12:01 -0500 Podcasts