From the Pulpit: Course Correction

There's nothing like a little "brood of vipers" to get you in the Christmas spirit.

Preaching on John the Baptist’s denunciation of the powers-that-be, the Rev. Canon Leonard L. Hamlin, Sr., said John’s harsh tone should serve as a wake-up call in the middle of Advent, a shock to the system that is meant to make us sit up and pay attention when something doesn’t feel right:

“I want to challenge us all this morning that the season of Advent and Christmas is filled with the good news of Christ, but it is a season and perhaps even this moment is an opportunity to make a course correction, to check our instruments, to see if we’re on course before the run picks up before the next services, before the singing, before the lights, before the candles, before everything here and there grabs us and holds us.

Are we really on course by what we are doing, not by what we’re saying, that it’s not just a symbolic representation? It’s not just going through the motions. It is not simply just saying, ‘I’ve been part of the ceremony,’ but what should we do?

It is in this season that we’re invited to embrace a bold vision, a bold faith that gives us the ability to run ahead of our circumstances, to run ahead of the moment, to get ahead of our fear, to get ahead of what looks dark, to be light along the path and the road for others. It is the time, right now, to check and see how far we may be drifting to look, to listen, and most of all to do.”