The Rev Alissa: Sermons

Send us Fan Mail"The real question is how do we live, knowing that grief, death, and loss are part of the story?text: John 11:1-45preached for Church of the Resurrection, Hopewell Junction, NY

Send us Fan Mail"The question before us is not what we will give up, but what kind of human being we will choose to be."text:Matthew 4:1-11preached with All Saints Episcopal Church, Manhattan on February 22, 2026

Send us Fan Mail"What is so interesting to me in this is that surrounded by needs, and wants and longings, Jesus looks at his weird and wonderful congregation and doesn’t tell them to get something, or to become something or to do something – he tells them who, in his view, they already are. "Text: Matthew 5:13-20, Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]Preached with The Chapel of St. John the Divine, Tomkins Cove, NY

Send us Fan Mail"We cannot expect our religion to save us if we do not remember our relationship with God and take seriously God’s desire for justice."Text: Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12preached for St Ignatius of Antioch, Manhattan, on Feb 1, 2026

Send us Fan Mail"There are things that we will never know. That can be discouraging, but it can also be motivating... I don't love it. I don't love this idea that we will never know. But this is how we begin our Advent season: in the strangeness, and the darkness, and just the straight up honesty that there are things we will never know."Text: Matthew 24:36-44Preached at All Saints, Manhattan on November 30, 2025

Send us Fan Mail"We submit to God’s power by refusing to harm each other.We obey God’s power by rejecting the pressures of our world to punish, to win, or to control any part of God’s created world."text: Luke 23:33-43preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Pearl River, NY on Christ the King Sunday.

Send us Fan Mail"We meet the mother of Jesus in this gospel not when she gives birth to his physical body, but when she gives birth to his ministry, at the wedding in Cana. The first time we see Jesus mother in John is at the beginning of the second chapter – “on the third day there was a wedding in Cana at Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.”'text: Gospel of John, in particular chapter 2 and chapter 19preached at Grace Church Manhattan for Good Friday

Send us Fan Mail" In this last night with his disciples before his big showdown with the Empire Jesus does not tease them, or intimidate them, or reassure them with a show of strength, or sign of power. Instead God incarnate puts a towel around his waist and serves them. And when he done scandalizing his friends with this act, he commands them to do the same, to love one another."text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35Preached at Church of the Heavenly Rest, Manhattan, New York on Maundy Thursday

Send us Fan Mail"Today Jesus gets to sit and eat with the people who mean the most to him. These are friends who have walked with him for the past three years, who have loved him through everything. Martha, Mary, Lazarus, his apostles, the ones who know him best, right now. His chosen family.Each one of them has struggled with the reality of who Jesus is, and how to love him."text:John 12:1-8Preached for Church of the Ascension, Mt. Vernon NY on the Fifth Sunday of Lent.

Send us Fan Mail" I suppose I have some things in common with the elder son in this morning's gospel lesson. Whenever I encounter this parable I find myself feeling the most empathy for him – out there in the field fuming and feeling lost while his father celebrates the son who has done so much damage. It is not fair. If I could give this parable a name I might call it “The parable of the resentful son.”Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32preached at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Manhattan for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

Send us Fan Mail"Maybe this is how we all perish, friends. By living as if we can earn love and favor from God by just being better than, or separate from, other people."text: Luke 13:1-9preached for St. Paul's Staten Island, Third Sunday of Lent 2025

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 13:31-35Preached for St. Paul's Spring Valley, NY on the Second Sunday of Lent, 2025

Send us Fan Mail"How do we know who we are? How do we know what that means?One way is through reflection on scripture, and participation in worship – liturgies like this one, the First Sunday in Lent, where we encounter ourselves again and again in text and prayer and sacrament. Another way is to recognize our own wilderness experiences, and to face our own tests."text: Luke 4:1-13Preached on the First Sunday of Lent for St. Ignatius of Antioch, Manhattan

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 2:22-40Preached for Candlemas Evensong, The Parish of Christ the Redeemer, Pelahm, NY

Send us Fan Mail"It has been said that every preacher only has one sermon. The one core value that will show up in some way in every sermon she preaches. This morning we hear Jesus’ one sermon. In everything he says and does he will be preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. This is who Jesus belongs to."text: Luke 4:14-21Preached for All Saints, Briarcliff Manor, 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 2:1-11preached for Christ's Church, Rye, New York

Send us Fan Mail"There is no one ritual that can make you perfect or worthy or whole, but there is one God who loves you enough to be with you – who shows up over and over in ordinary ways, through ordinary moments, and every religious practice we do together is meant to help us live like that is true."Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23Preachd for St. Philip's Harlem, NYC9/1/2024

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 alive and fully present to the heartbreak, hope, and potential held here in this place.That sounds overwhelming and intense and uncomfortable and still some of them stay. Some of them choose the difficult teaching, this difficult Jesus."Text: John 6:56-69Preached for St. Andrew & St. Luke, Beacon NY8/25/2024

Send us Fan Mail“ for us, for Christians, there is no choosing the spiritual over the physical. Christians do not get to pick and choose what a life to experience and what to escape, and we are not called to anywhere but where we actually are.”Text: John 6:51-58Preached for St Paul’s, Pleasant Valley, NY8/18/2024

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 assent to an idea. It is participation in a relationship.”Text: John 6:35, 41-51Preached for St Philip’s, Harlem8/11/2024

Send us Fan Mail“ How was Bathsheba presented to you, the first time her story crossed your awareness?  History and interpretation have been almost as cruel to this woman as her king was. She must have done something to provoke it – this is one of the most common tropes used to interpret this story. The innocent king driven mad by the seductress. Here is another one: they were in love! Bathsheba wanted it. Neither of these is the story our Bible tells. This is not a love story or a seduction.”Text: 2 Samuel 11:1-15, John 6:1-21preached for Holy Trinity, Inwood, Manhattan 

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 3:20-35Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Times Square, Manhattan

Send us Fan Mail" Because of our Trinity, we have permission to always be looking for a third way – because that’s what God does, and that’s who God is. We have permission, right there in the mysterious and unfathomable nature of our God, to be curious instead of defensive when we encounter ways of being, and living, and loving that we do not understand. "text: John 3:1-17preached at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC

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 faith?"Preached for St. Philip's, Harlem, NY.text: Acts 8:26-40 and John 15:1-8

Send us Fan Mail"This Easter is harder to want, isn’t it? This is an Easter that is not about winning as much as it is about turning and re-orienting ourselves toward God and each other. This is an Easter that is less about a huge, visible victory and more about what happens to a small community of people when God passes through the locked doors of their fears, anxieties and expectations and opens up their life to the work of welcoming more and more people into their heart. "Preached for All Angels, Manhattantext: Luke 24:36b-48

Send us Fan Mail"This is the commission that Jesus gives his community in the world, the little baby church, our ancestor. Forgive people, and love them. Forgive people and hold them fast, even when they doubt. Even when they don’t believe in the way that you do. "Preached for Christ Church, Warwick, NYtext: John 20:19-31

Send us Fan Mail"Easter is not a fix, but it is an opening. Resurrection is an invitation. It is a stone rolled away, opening up possibilities we could never have dreamed on our own, God’s possibilities for justice and hope, after trauma, for healing after brokenness, and for life after death."Preached for Trinity St. Paul, St. Simon, St John, New Rochelle, NYtext: Mark 16:1-8

Send us Fan Mail"Friends, love isn’t a resource that can be used up or spent up. It isn’t all we need – Love is all we are. It is the engine that runs the world, the only action worth taking, the only identity worth living. "Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35Preached for St. Philip's, Harlem, New York

Send us Fan Mail"So if the resurrected and living body of Jesus is the answer – what is the question? Here it is: How do we survive, when the temple where we meet God and find our own identities as God’s people is destroyed? How can we be God’s people, if we don’t have a place to meet with God? "Preached for St. Philip's, Harlem, New York City.text: John 2:13-22

Send us Fan Mail"Change is a thing that happens – you move to a new city, lose a relationship, a messiah is baptized and named. Transition is the process of a human being responding to change, and it takes a lot longer to happen than the change itself. Becoming a Seattleite takes a lot longer than just moving to Seattle.  A breakup last a lot longer than the moment you call it quits. And, as we see in our gospel this morning, being baptized and named as God’s beloved is not all it takes to become the Jesus who proclaims the good news of God’s kingdom come near."Preached for St. Matthew/San Mateo, Auburn WAtext: Mark 1:9-15

Send us Fan Mail"Words create worlds.I think this is precisely what Jesus is about in our gospel reading tonight. We may be tempted, as humans who inhabit our particular culture to read the beatitudes and try to make them an individual prescription for who gets blessing and who doesn’t. For some of us this is the most obvious way to hear these words.But that is not what Jesus is up to, here. Jesus is not giving a prescription for who God loves, or even a recipe for how particular people might gain God’s attention and blessing.Jesus’ words are revealing a world. "Preached for St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Tacoma, WAtext: Matthew 5:1-12

Send us Fan Mail"This is how Jesus begins his big work of love and life and hope – with the one human being in front of him. This is how Jesus begins to author the story of God’s kingdom-  not with words but with an act of love, offering freedom and connection to the person who is yelling at him, and seems to be trying to take him down. "preached for St. John San Juan, Olympiatext: Mark 1:21-28

Send us Fan Mail"It is such a big project, to see the full humanity of every person and every type of person in our lives. And yet I think this is the project of the incarnation, the big idea of Jesus Christ’s enfleshing among us. "Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-20preached at St. John San Juan, Olympia WA

Send us Fan Mail"One of the tasks of human existence is to figure out what to do with our own strangeness. Do we run from our shadows? Ignore them, try to erase or medicate them? Can we get close and somehow embrace the chaotic and unmanageable parts of who we are? "Text: Luke 2:1-20Preached at St. John San Juan, Olympia, WA

Send us Fan Mail"Advent is a threshold moment – it is the deep breath before we are asked to step into renewed relationship with the mystery of God made flesh. We ritualize this threshold moment because we need practice, friends. We need practice noticing the invitation, and we need practice stepping through the door. "text: Isaiah 40:1-11 & Mark 1:1-8preached for St. John San Juan, Olympia 

Send us Fan Mail"This passage is not about despair, did you notice? And it is not about punishment – nowhere in it does Jesus say bad things will happen to those who fall asleep. It is about hope after horrible things. And it is about trusting that every moment is a moment where Jesus can show up, arrive, redeem, and bless us. It is about not allowing the crushing defeats of this world to disembody us from the lived reality of hope. "text: Mark 13:24-37Preached for St. John/San Juan, Olympia WA

Send us Fan Mail“I know that when you and I hear words like eternal life or eternal punishment, our minds go straight to the afterlife – heaven and hell. But that’s not what eternal means – it doesn’t mean afterlife or even unending life. Eternal means without a beginning or an end. When Jesus talks about eternal life, he’s talking about knowing God and participating in the life and love of God who is outside of and bigger than time. “Preached for St John’s Episcopal Church, Olympia, WAText: Matthew 25:34-46

Send us Fan Mail"Here is this parable, asking you and I a question: what extravagant gift from God are you holding in your life today? And I’m not talking about how well you dance, or sing, or spit pillows. I am talking about the extravagant ability to love, to risk, to take heart in the face of great challenge, that has God given to you. I am talking about the deep well of forgiveness, or courage, or hope, or faith are you holding in your hands and in your heart today.  If anything will turn our world upside down, if there is anything that will give this broken place glimpses of God’s kingdom, it is your willingness to use those gifts. "Preached at Christ Church, Anacortes, WAtext: Matthew 25:14-30

Send us Fan Mail"How do we get ready for an unpredictable God? How do we prepare ourselves to be Christians in a world that, really, we cannot prepare for? How do we fill our lamps with oil so we can be providers of life and light when something new from God does show up? What do we do if and when God shows up and we can’t, when we don’t have the oil we need to really shine?"Preached at St. John's Episcopal Church, Olympia WAtext: Matthew 25:1-13

Send us Fan Mail"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. Give God all your attention, Jesus tells us. The way you do that is to pay attention to the neighbor – to see hear, and attend to their needs, AND to pay attention to yourself, to your own baggage that may damage others if they don’t know it’s there. "Preached for St. John's, Olympia, WAtext: Matthew 22:34-46

Send us Fan Mail"I think we humans want to pick a side because that feels like doing something. Then we can rage and judge and fight, and that also feels like doing something. But, is it? I wonder what we lose, when we accept the story that there are only two sides, only two options, only two ways to think or feel or act. Us or them. Right or wrong. Children get to live in safety here OR there. "Preached for St. John's Episcopal Church, Olympia, WAtext: Matthew 22:15-22

Send us Fan Mail"I can get behind this – this idea that the kingdom of God is like a new beginning for a beloved child, that the kingdom of God is like a feast – a new beginning that is made better, that is made blessed by the sharing of food and drink with the people who belong. I like this, I can endorse this. Yes, this is what the kingdom of God is like. And we know that you cannot have a feast by yourself. So the next question the parable asks us is – who is coming to this feast? That’s where it gets complicated. "preached at St. John's Episcopal Church, Olympia WAtext: Matthew 22:1-14

Send us Fan Mail"Over and over again in Exodus the people complain about their decision to follow God’s rescue plan for them, and Moses complains about the faithlessness and impatience of the people and yes sometimes God also gets frustrated (the Golden Calf situation comes to mind) but for the most part, like in our passage today, God just responds by providing for them. Water comes from  rock. The people are cared for in their legitimate distress. We tend to remember the complaining  people but let’s also notice that no matter how annoying they become, God still takes care of them. "Preached at Church of the Apostles, SeattleSept 24th, 2023text: Exodus 17:1-7

Send us Fan Mail"God does not care about what you and I think is fair, and God will not love us more if we work harder. God cares about the world that God has made and the real, physical well-being of all the people in it. Which means that when the end of the day arrives and it is time to get paid, God is not asking what is fair but rather what is necessary for all people to experience health, safety, and the opportunity to flourish. "Preached at Grace Church, Bainbridge Island, WAtext: Matthew 20:1-16

Send us Fan Mail"Forgiveness in this context is not saying its okay for other people to hurt us. It’s notletting bad people off the hook. Forgiveness in the context of Christian faith is an act ofimagination.It is trusting that we can imagine a future that is not controlled by the past. And it is thebelief that every time we choose to forgive a new beginning is possible."Preached at St. James Episcopal Church, Kent WAtext: Matthew 18:21-35

Send us Fan Mail" While I imagine you and I are not deeply shocked and dismay around being told that what we eat cannot make us unpure in the eyes of God... I am going to bet that most of us  are  pretty uncomfortable with this second part of our gospel lesson, the part where a desperate mother throws herself in front of Jesus and he appears to tell her that she doesn’t belong, that God's love and mercy is not for her. I mean, wasn't Jesus the one who was just saying that we should watch what comes out of our mouths? "Preached at St. Bede's, Port Orchard, Washingtontexts: Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 & Matthew 15: 10-28

Send us Fan Mail"There’s lots to be distracted by in this text: the drama, the sibling rivalry, the inept parenting, the annoying teenage boy. This is a story of our broken human family, writ small into the lives of one particular family, which is so often how it goes. But there is another force in this story, an almost hidden character who is even more powerful than sibling resentment, attempted fratricide, and heartbreaking betrayal. Can you guess who it is? God."Preached at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Seattle WAText: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Send us Fan Mail"Once upon a time there were a people who had never had enough.They didn’t believe in enough.And why would they? They had eyes and ears and voices. They had never heard a story where there was enough of any one thing for everyone to have what they needed."Written and told for Church of the Apostles, Seattle WAtext: Matthew 14:13-21(COTA is a Lutheran-Episcopal emergent community in Seattle. Their worship theme for August is Our Stories, and preachers are asked to do a short re-telling of the gospel each week in their own way/words.) 

Send us Fan Mail"When I imagine Hagar and Ishmael leaving, walking away into the desert in the cool of the morning, I also imagine Abraham watching them go. Sarah, checking on Isaac and telling herself over and over that this is for her child’s good, that she had no other choice. I imagine all the other people who belong to this family trying to feel safe, in the shadow of this absence."Preached at St. Paul's, Port Townsend, WA Text: Genesis 21:8-21 

Send us Fan Mail"God separates day from the night, and in doing so creates not just night and day but also dawn, and dusk, these lovely, liminal, in between times.God separates the sea from the dry land, and in doing so creates beaches, and river banks, and lakeshores – special places of wonder and biodiversity that live between the water and the land.God creates creatures and they are of every kind. There is no creature on this earth that is not good, not created by God, from their beginning.And God creates us, man and woman in God’s image. And -  all the people in between, the precious human beings who exist in between male and female, still in the image of God."preached at St. Antony of Egypt in Silverdale, WA: Trinity Sunday 2023.