04/05/2007
Sermon at the service for the Renewal of Ordination Vows – 2007, Maundy Thursday, April 6
By The Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick, Jr.
Jesus took and His taking and touching and teaching are integral to His way of being the icon of God that He is. He took bread but there was an intriguing pattern of taking before that.
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09/14/2006
Homily at the Ordination of Three Deacons
By Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick Jr.
February 24, 2006 Christ Episcopal Church, Bowling Green, Ky. The Text: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my father.” – John 15:15 This sermon is divided into three parts. The first part consists of two stories, the second part is Bible study, and the third part is a word to those being ordained and to the church. First Story: Basil Pennington, OCSO, monk and author, tells the following story in his book Seeking His Mind: 40 Meetings with Christ. Joe was coming home from school. Ahead of him he saw a classmate, one he knew only by sight. The fellow was struggling with quite a load of stuff, and suddenly he lost the battle. Books, sneakers, athletic equipment all went in different directions. Joe went up, helped him retrieve some of the straying items and walked along with him, carrying part of this huge load. He learned that his classmate’s name was Li. When he reached Li’s house, Joe was invited in for a coke. The two boys started talking. It was three hours before they said goodbye. They graduated from the same high school and their acquaintance continued. On the day they both were to graduate from high school waiting for the ceremonies to begin, Li came over to Joe and said, “I want to thank you.” “For what?” “For today, for so much more, for my life.”
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09/14/2006
SERMON AT CONVENTION EUCHARIST
By Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick Jr.,
March 5, 2004, at Trinity Episcopal Church, Owensboro Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was lead by the Spirit in the Wilderness where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. Sociologists tell us that there are two types of status: Ascribed status and achieved status. Prince Charles has ascribed status: Bill Gates has achieved his. As I reflect on my growing up years I realize that I benefited from ascribed status – This was particularly true on Sunday mornings. My Dad would return from the Dairy barn, pick me up, take me to the village, and buy the Sunday paper with the funny papers. We’d pile into Mom and Dad’s big bed and read the comics. I would chew Juicy Fruit gum, a Sunday treat. Then it was off to church, where the fact that I was God’s child, loved, cherished and purposed was communicated week after week. Church was followed by Sunday dinner at my Grandparents’: Fried chicken, Roast Beef, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. Touch football or, if we were entertaining my grandfather – boring croquet; forts built in the hayloft.
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09/14/2006
Trinity Sunday A Year 2005
By Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick Jr.
St. Francis in the Fields Church, Harrods Creek What a glorious day. Over 50 chapels of the Holy Spirit are being dedicated today and one chapel, dedicated to God’s glory and in memory of Stephen Davenport, is being consecrated. I did not misspeak in my first sentence. Paul tells us that we are all temples of the Holy Spirit. The adults and young folks who are making a mature commitment to Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, are among other things promising to be chapels, meeting places, where folks who encounter these intentional Christians will have an encounter with the living God who claims us and uses us to go out and baptize and teach. As your bishop and preacher it is truly an awesome responsibility to preach on this occasion. Stephen Davenport was a great Christian priest and in many ways a daunting personality. I remember vividly a conversation we had towards the end of his life when he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Theology is getting pretty thin in the Episcopal Church.” He then went on to complain about the general state of preaching. Like the disciples in the upper room, I first responded by saying, “Lord is it I!”
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09/01/2006
“THE DOORS WERE SHUT FOR FEAR OF THE JEWS”
By Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick Jr.
Pentecost 2005 St. Matthews Episcopal Church, Louisville If one takes an objective view of the last 2000 years and particularly the last century, Jews certainly have had a lot more to fear from Christians than Christians have had to fear from Jews. In fact, the very Gospel that we are reading from, St. John’s Gospel, has been used as a terror text against Jews. Frequently in places like Russia and Germany, there would be killings of Jews near Good Friday because of passages in the Passion narrative, especially from John’s Gospel. Now, violence against Jews justified on St. John’s Gospel, like all violence, was a lunatic reading of the text. Jesus is a Jew, the disciples are Jews, the mother of Jesus is a Jew, and the beloved disciple was a Jew. Every hero in the story is a Jew, and yet these words—“the doors were shut for fear of the Jews”—misused through the centuries, fall on our ears as harsh and strident.
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