The Rev Alissa: Sermons

Send us Fan Mail "My least favorite version of the multi-verse is the one it feels like we are living in right now. It feels like people in our country are living in different universes from each other. I look at the world and see a disaster. My neighbor who voted very differently than me can look at the same world and think that finally everything is going pretty well. It feels like we are living in different realities, and that feeling is confusing and painful." text: Luke 13:31-35 Preach...

Send us Fan Mail "This child is God, come to be with us in the midst of all our brokenness, in the midst of every deep dark sadness, in the midst of oppression and danger and heartache and despair. Jesus is with us. The child who has been brought to be blessed is a blessing. Here he is, our tiny vulnerable flame, alight in the dark." text: Luke 2:22-40 Preached for Candlemas Evensong, The Parish of Christ the Redeemer, Pelahm, NY

Send us Fan Mail "This epiphany season we are invited to imagine a God whose grace doesn’t need a reason to flow, a world where the waters of baptism flow into the wine of our feast without needing a broken body in between. That’s not our world, not the one we’ve got right now, but it is God’s world – it is what we must imagine." Text: John 2:1-11 preached for Christ's Church, Rye, New York

Send us Fan Mail "What is interesting to me is not that some people leave Jesus here when things get real. What is interesting is that some of them stay. Jesus lays out the reality – following him is about to get hard, they will need to not just be next to him, basking in the wonder of his signs and miracles. They will not get to remain as they are, in the general vicinity of Jesus. No, to be with Jesus means devouring him – his suffering, his love, his choice to be human in this world fully ...

Send us Fan Mail “ We tend to think that belief means intellectual assent, or factual certainty. So if you hear that you need to believe in God, and in Jesus, you might think that you need to come to intellectual certainty about the existence of God or divinity of Jesus. We talk about ‘holding’ beliefs, as if they are ideas we put in boxes and save up. But just like the talk I give people about the beliefs we proclaim in our creeds, the belief Jesus is talking about here -in him- is not assen...

Send us Fan Mail "That’s the problem with strong men. It’s been a problem since the very first kingdom asked if they could have one. Strong men want to use the power we give them. They want to use the muscles they have. They want to provide borders and protection and they want to fight. So they make promises to us they cannot keep. They promise that we can feel safe. They promise that we don’t have to belong to the people beyond our borders, outside our walls. " Text: Mark 3:20-35 Preached ...

Send us Fan Mail "So here is the challenge: We will meet people on the path ahead who are not like us. Who do not share very many, or any of the identities that matter most to us. People who enjoy privilege we don’t, who defy norms we are used to. And some of those people, friends, are looking for Jesus. Some of those people are going to ask us the impossible question – what is to prevent me from being baptized? What is to prevent me from belonging to you, and with you, in your community of f...