Sermons from St. John’s Episcopal Church

Born again. Fr. David Houk. March 1, 2026.

John 3:1-17. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be “born from above” to see the kingdom of God.

Journey Through The Wilderness. Fr Louis Harris. February 22, 2026.

From the propers this week, Father Harris examines the jarring transition from Jesus’ baptism to his isolation in the desert. If the Son of God was led into the wilderness, we should expect no less: life after baptism does not get easier.
Through the lens of the Desert Fathers and the season of Lent, Father Harris breaks down the three core temptations we all face: appetite, security, and power. He challenges us to stop trying to "muscle through" our anxieties or manufacture our own safety. Instead, we are invited to enter our interior wilderness, face our attachments, and practice the hardest spiritual discipline of all: waiting on God.

Portrait mode. Fr. David Houk. February 15, 2026.

Matthew 17:1-9. In Lent we are invited up the mountain with Jesus for a 40 day season of focus.

On Being Spiritual. Fr Harris. February 9, 2026.

From the propers this week, Fr Harris tackles a common saying: "I'm spiritual but not religious." He explains how this often points to a reaction against empty rituals, where people go to church but their hearts and minds are somewhere else. Meditating on the wisdom of the Prophet Isaiah and Jesus, the sermon challenges this divide. True faith is both spiritual and religious. It means connecting our inner life with God to outward actions of justice and kindness, like feeding the hungry and helping the oppressed. This is how we become the "light of the world" we are called to be.

The Beatitudes. Fr. David Houk. February 1, 2026.

Matthew 5:1-12. On the Sunday of St. John’s Annual Parish Meeting, Fr. Houk asks the qualitative question, “Are we a Beatitudes Church?”

A kingdom of the heart. Fr. David Houk. January 25, 2026.

Isaiah 9:1-4. Matthew 4:12-23. Jesus’s kingdom is for everyone, a matter of the heart. The Kingdom of God has nothing to do with "Christian Nationalism."

Repentance made easier. Fr. David Houk. January 11, 2025.

Matthew 3:13-17. Why is Jesus getting baptized? What does he have to repent of? Maybe he’s trying to reassure us that there is nothing we can do to keep him from loving us.

What It All Means. Fr. Harris. December 28, 2025.

From the propers this week, Father Harris confronts our modern "crisis of meaning," diagnosing it instead as a crisis of forgetting. We chase illusions, survey the rubble of our choices, and wonder what it all means, all while neglecting the foundational, radical claim of our faith: "The Word became flesh." God’s mind and will are not hidden. They have been revealed in Jesus Christ. At Christmas, we are called to remember. Our purpose is not a philosophical puzzle but a transformative call: to have our own lives infused by that same Word. This means being remade by His light, life, and truth. The journey begins again; as infants, we behold the infant Christ.

God’s idea of Christmas. Fr. David Houk. Christmas Eve, 2025.

The scene described in Luke 2 is not what we would call an ideal Christmas. But this was God’s idea to meet imperfect people in an imperfect world.

God is with us. Fr. Louis Harris. December 21, 2025.

From the propers this week, Father Harris explores our deepest hopes for dealing with suffering. We often believe that simply forgetting our pain is the best we can hope for, an idea echoed in the ancient Greek myth of the River Lethe. Yet this path of forgetting leaves our sorrows without meaning. Advent calls us to a different and more difficult path: not to forget our heartbreak, but to remember it and bring it before the God who promises to transform it. This Christmas, we are invited to find a hope greater than oblivion, a joy that comes not from escaping our memories but from seeing them redeemed.