Sermons From St. John the Divine St. John the Divine Episcopal Church - Houston, TX

Fierce winds of fear and anxiety threaten to swamp our lives. Storms of cultural clashes sometimes steal our peace and make it difficult to stay in the boat of faith with our fellow Jesus followers. How can we find the deep peace of Jesus during these turbulent times?

When the inevitable storms of life begin to disrupt and upheave your life you need to remember that Christ is in the boat with you, being tossed and turned, and he is the one who can calm the vicious battering that you’re experiencing.

Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God through the parables of a wheat field and a mustard seed. The Kingdom of God is growing today, and Jesus brings us into this new creation.

Jesus' parable of the growing of the seed tells us about how we should live into the kingdom of God. That the mysterious growth of the seed only happens by the grace of God in his perfect timing and that with patience and trust, the same will happen to us.

Despite inevitable failures and disappointments, Christian congregations are to be new families whose head is Jesus. In family with him, members see in each other not only a fellow sinner, but also one for whom Christ died. Within the family of the church, we always see each other in baptismal garments.

When God brings salvation he creates a new people, a new family. Jesus continues this pattern of salvation by creating a family, not of biology or ideology but of his grace and healing.