Sermons at Christ the King Anglican

The Empty Bed and the Uncaring City

This exploration of Song of Songs takes us into the darker, more unsettling dimensions of love that we often prefer to avoid. Through the bride's nightmare of searching for her beloved through empty city streets, we encounter a profound truth: love is not only rapture and delight, but also risk, insecurity, and vulnerability. The passage invites us into three powerful images that reveal the nature of authentic love. First, the empty bed reminds us that even in our most intimate relationships, we encounter distance and difference. The challenge is not to flee from these moments of rupture but to pursue unity while honoring the distinct personhood of our beloved, just as the Trinity models perfect oneness in diversity. Second, the uncaring city represents all the structures and demands that pull us away from love, the endless pursuit of achievement, recognition, and economic success that distracts us from what truly matters. We must choose to live in the garden rather than be consumed by the city. Finally, the return to the mother's house confronts us with the fundamental question of human existence: Will you love me or will you abandon me? This question never leaves us. To love is to remain perpetually vulnerable, perpetually in need of reassurance, perpetually willing to be reduced to the state of a child seeking security. Only a lifetime of faithful presence can truly answer this question, which is why God's design has always been lifelong covenant love.

The Voice Through the Lattice

What if we've been missing one of the most profound dimensions of our relationship with God? This exploration of the Song of Songs invites us to consider a startling truth: God is not only our Judge and King, but also our Lover. Drawing from the rich allegorical tradition that stretches back to the early church, we discover that this ancient love poem reveals the passionate pursuit of Christ for His church and for each individual soul. The passage from Song of Songs 2:8-17 presents a beautiful tension between hearing and seeing, between presence and absence. Just as the bride hears her beloved's voice but cannot yet see his face, we too hear God's voice through Scripture while awaiting the beatific vision—that ultimate intimacy of seeing God face to face in eternity. The bridegroom leaps over mountains to reach his beloved, just as Christ pursued us even to the cross. Yet sometimes he seems to withdraw, not out of indifference, but to refine and test our faith. The bride's response teaches us something crucial: even in apparent absence, we can rest in absolute certainty of our Beloved's love. This isn't merely intellectual knowledge—it's the promise of an intimacy so complete that human marriage can only faintly prefigure it. We are invited to recognize that God does nothing other than relentlessly pursue our hearts, battering them with His solicitation, longing for the day when hearing gives way to seeing, and we behold Him face to face forever.

Under His Shadow: Covenant Love, Marital Intimacy, and Union with Christ

This profound exploration of Song of Solomon chapter 2 invites us into a sacred space where human intimacy becomes a window into divine communion. The sermon challenges us to reconsider a book often neglected in Christian teaching, revealing how marital love serves as a living parable of Christ's relationship with His church. We encounter the bride delighting in her beloved, finding rest under his shadow, and being brought into the wine cellar where covenant love is celebrated. The imagery is rich and unapologetically sensual, yet it points beyond itself to something transcendent. The central revelation here is that communion with God is not merely intellectual assent or moral improvement, but participation in shared life. Just as the bride longs to know and be known by her beloved, we are invited into a relationship with Christ that is deeply personal and transformative. The Eucharist emerges as the fulfillment of this imagery, where Christ gives not just gifts, but Himself. This teaching confronts our tendency toward self-protection and performance, reminding us that we are fully known by God and yet fully loved. The banner over us is love, declaring our identity and belonging before we achieve anything. This is grace that brings us to the banquet first, teaching us that belonging precedes becoming.

Footprints in the Desert: Love’s Path to the Green Pasture

This exploration of the Song of Solomon challenges us to see love not merely as a safe destination, but as a precarious journey filled with longing, fear, and surprising power. We encounter a woman separated from her beloved, desperately seeking him in the wilderness while feeling vulnerable among strangers. Yet her lover reminds her that he has left traces along the way—footprints to follow—and that her very beauty is a weapon against the forces that would harm her. The profound spiritual lesson here is that our Christian life mirrors this journey. We find ourselves in the wilderness, not yet in the green pasture of heaven where our divine Bridegroom resides. But God has left traces of His presence in Scripture, in liturgy, in symbols and sacraments. As we follow these tracks, we are called to adorn ourselves not with worldly beauty but with good works that confound the powers of darkness. Most remarkably, we discover that we possess a kind of seductive power over God Himself—our prayers rise like incense, enticing Him to descend from His throne into our wilderness. In the Eucharist, this becomes reality: God allows Himself to be miniaturized as bread, creating an oasis of intimacy in the desert of our lives. The destination intrudes into our journey, giving us strength to continue onward while tasting the joy that awaits us.

From Prudes to Lovers: Recovering the Church’s Bridal Heart

This profound exploration of Song of Songs invites us to reconsider our relationship with God through the lens of divine intimacy. We are challenged to move beyond our cultural discomfort with sexuality and recognize that God designed physical love to point us back to Himself. The sermon introduces us to an ancient understanding of baptism as a nuptial bath, a preparation for intimate communion with our divine lover. Drawing connections between the passionate language of Song of Songs and familiar psalms like Psalm 63, we discover that our spiritual vocabulary has always included the language of longing, desire, and satisfaction. The central spiritual principle is transformative: when we take God's gifts and refuse to let them point back to Him, they become idols that consume us, and we lose the ability to see God through those very gifts. This applies to money, food, and especially sexuality. Both secular culture and conservative Christianity have failed to allow sex to properly direct our hearts toward God, resulting in spiritual anemia and practical dysfunction. The beloved in Song of Songs models for us the proper posture of a divine lover: simultaneously aware of our darkness and confident in our loveliness, actively seeking intimacy with God, and finding in the Eucharist the ultimate kiss that is better than wine.

Introducing the Song of Songs

New Birth and Belonging

The Spirit the Gardener: Pentecost and the Long Work of Renewal

This Pentecost reflection invites us to reimagine the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives through the beautiful metaphor of gardening. Rather than viewing the Spirit as a magic wand that instantly fixes our problems, we're challenged to see spiritual growth as a long, patient cultivation process. Just as a garden requires preparing soil, planting seeds, watering, weeding, and pruning before we can harvest its fruits, our spiritual lives demand sustained attention, daily prayer, regular repentance, and participation in the sacraments. The sermon draws from Psalm 104, which speaks of God renewing the face of the earth through His Spirit, reminding us that the Bible itself begins and ends in a garden. This teaching confronts our microwave culture's desire for immediate results and big emotional experiences, instead calling us to embrace the wisdom that true transformation takes time. When we're baptized, we receive the Spirit as a real beginning, but it initiates a lifelong journey of growing the fruits of the Spirit: patience, gentleness, love, joy, and virtue. The fullness of what God intends for us lies on the other side of years of faithful cultivation, and nothing remains unrenewed that walks with the Spirit over time.

“Your Tongue Is Your Glory: Why Christians Must Sing”

What if our voices are actually instruments of glory that God designed specifically for worship? This powerful exploration of Psalm 108 challenges us to see singing not as an optional add-on to our faith, but as the very apex of what it means to be human. The psalmist David speaks of awakening his heart, his instruments, and even himself to praise God, calling his tongue his 'glory'—the noblest part of his being. This isn't just poetic language; it's a profound theological truth. Just as birds instinctively burst into song at dawn without self-consciousness or shame, we too are created to let our voices rise in worship. Yet many of us keep our voices in their pajamas, held back by shame, cynicism, spiritual sluggishness, or resentment. The sermon connects this theme beautifully to Ascension Tide, reminding us that when Christ ascended, He took our full humanity—including our capacity for song—into the very throne room of heaven. Human nature itself has been glorified and enthroned. When we sing, we're not just making pleasant sounds; we're participating in the restoration of human glory that God always intended. We're allowing the Spirit to fill our lungs and tune our hearts back to their original purpose. This isn't about musical perfection—it's about wholehearted offering. God delights in our beginning efforts just as earthly parents beam with joy at their children's Christmas concerts, whether the notes are perfectly pitched or enthusiastically loud. The call is clear: wake up your voice, shake off the shame, and let your glory—your singing—rise to the King who has been crowned.

Walking the Parish Mile: Praying, Planting, and Building in Exile

This powerful reflection centers on Jeremiah 29 and God's surprising command to His exiled people in Babylon: seek the peace of the city where you find yourself. Rather than retreating from a pagan culture or waiting passively for deliverance, we are called to engage deeply with our communities as priests and ambassadors. The message challenges us to see our neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and local institutions not as foreign territory but as our parish mile, our spiritual responsibility. We learn that being a spiritual polis means becoming a community so marked by holiness, generosity, and joy that we radiate transformation rather than merely communicate ideas. The vision presented is profoundly hopeful: our cities are not accidents or corruptions but reflections of the Trinitarian image, distinct persons bound together in common purpose. When we pray for our mailman, befriend teachers, support local business owners, and invest in our neighbors, we are making an eschatological statement. We are declaring that one day earth will be as it is in heaven, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God. This is not about domination but about living as leaven, working cell by cell through our communities, seducing the world back to sanity through the beauty of authentic Christian life.