Sermon Archive

We invite you to reflect upon these sermons, offered at the Sunday morning service at the Princeton University Chapel.

We hope that you find them to be a resource to you in your own spiritual journey.

Sermons

Talking Past Each Other
Feb. 17, 2008

As we all know, we are in the grip of election season. As the circus road show that is the primaries and caucuses moves from state to state, as big tents get erected the clowns come out for comic relief, donkeys and elephants parade around the ring, folks do verbal high-wire acts, tame lions (or get mauled by them!), fly through the air grasping for the next trapeze, then parade out...

What Tempts Us
Feb. 10, 2008

A number of years ago, at the beginning of Lent, I resolved to give up chocolate. This was a very significant decision for me – I love chocolate. I have some every day, in some form. I can go to an ice cream shop that has 300 flavors and I will only ever order chocolate. Or deep chocolate. Or triple chocolate fudge brownie – whatever is the most chocolaty. During this particular...

Martin Luther King, Jr. Service
Jan. 21, 2008

Well, here we are on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a day like those that honor Washington and Lincoln, situated around their birthdays, to honor a great American. King was a great American – not because he outdid himself in flag-waving or in whatever passes for patriotism, not because he affirmed his government’s actions no matter what it said or did, not because he told other people...

Epiphany
Jan. 6, 2008

Star of wonder, star of light lead our minds and hearts this morning as you lead those very wise seekers so long ago that we too may arrive at a place of understanding that is simple, and holy, and with Christ. Amen.

 This morning we are observing the Feast of the Epiphany, when the wise men from the east arrive at the manger. Little Jesus’ first companions are...

Christmas Eve Service
Dec. 24, 2007
Here we are again – it is Christmas Eve. Here we are again, brought to the side of the manger, whether we are ready to be here or whether we are not. Whether we have gotten everything done for work or Christmas, or whether we have not. Whether our spirits are ready to engage in the Christmas story, or whether they are not. Here we are again on Christmas Eve, no matter where the last 12 months...
Mary, Mary
Dec. 16, 2007

On the third Sunday in Advent many Christian communities, including this one, light a pink candle rather than a purple one. The purple, also prominent in Lent, is a symbol of this season of repentance. The pink candle refers to the fact that the biblical texts for the third Sunday in Advent are about Mary. Pink – girls, you get it. Mary must figure prominently in Advent if we are...

Staying Awake
Dec. 2, 2007

So, here we are again in the season of Advent, the season of repentance and of hope unleashed and wild – on the loose! A time to let it all hang out, in terms of our audacity, our outrageous assertion that the time is coming soon when the violent and the defenseless, the fanged and the toothless of the world, can relax together and neither need worry. Here we are again at the time...

Give Me Understanding
Nov. 4, 2007

There has been one time in my own life when I was waiting to get a glimpse of someone so popular that people around me were climbing trees to get a better view. It was the summer of 1989, and I was working in Boston, while living in a Quaker boarding house on Beacon Hill. Nelson Mandela had just been released after 27 years in prison, exactly the number of years that I had been alive. I...

God is Love
Nov. 2, 2007

Love does not come to everyone. How fortunate are we to whom it does come. How blessed are we, how blessed are you, SJ and M, not because all will now be well, but because all – whatever becomes or befalls you – will be enriched by the love that you share, will be shared by the love that enjoins you. Love doesn’t make everything all right, but, if lived out fully, love does make...

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, Luke 17:11-19
Oct. 14, 2007

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to God on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” This the prophet Jeremiah writes from Judah to his fellow Jews who are in exile in Babylon. They’ve been forcibly uprooted from their homes. They are many miles away. They are separated from their culture, their temple and geographical...