Sermons from St. Paul's Cleveland Heights

The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist and Holy Baptism on the Third Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon text here.

The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday after Pentecost.
Download the sermon text here.

On this Baccalaureate Sunday, graduating seniors Linnea Koops and Clara Lyford preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

To read the text of their sermons, click here.

The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
Download the text of the sermon here.

Click here to download a copy of the sermon.

Guest preacher, The Rev. Leeann Culbreath, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday of Easter.
To download the sermon text, click here.

The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Easter on April 7, 2024.
To download the sermon text, click here.

The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Easter Day.
Download the sermon text here.

The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our services on Good Friday.

The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at the Maundy Thursday service at 7:30 p.m.

The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Liturgy of the Palms and the Holy Eucharist on the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday.
Download the sermon text here.

The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday in Lent.

The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday in Lent.
Download a copy of the sermon here.

The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday in Lent.
Download the sermon text here.

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Names are important. In fact, my name is the entire reason I have my dog. Years back, I was in search of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. I was scrolling through the webpage of a breeder who had some pups for sale, and I knew I wanted a black and tan cavalier. As I was scrolling, I reached a certain puppy and stopped, shocked. I could not believe my eyes. There in front of me was a black and tan puppy with the name Gabriel. I made a call, and a week later, I was the proud owner of a black and tan Cavvy with my name. Though I have been tempted, I have never changed his name. After all the whole reason we’ve enjoyed each other’s company for ten years is our shared name. I have him because of how he was named.

Names were even more important in the time of Abram and Sarai. Names were more than just a label. They were a descriptor. They told a lot about the person who had the name. Names contained identity, vocation, purpose. God thought so highly of names that he changed Abram and Sarai’s names. But we will come back to that.

I want us to first look at the text from Mark because I think this story of Jesus and Peter shows us something important about God. Peter has always been one of my favorites. Peter is the guy who was always doing too much. He’s the guy who tried to walk on water. He cut off the ear of a Roman soldier in defense of Jesus. He told Jesus that he would never deny him, only to do it not once, not twice, but three times. Peter might be called impulsive or reckless. But here’s what I love about Peter: He was never afraid to get close, to wonder, to question, to doubt, to love. It was Peter who was the first person to identify Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. In fact Peter does this only a couple of verses before we pick up with him in the Gospel text today. And yet just two verses after he makes this confession, he rebukes Jesus. In a matter of just seconds, he is a confessor who then rebukes the Son of God. And while Jesus in very clear terms tells Peter to be quiet, Peter will go on to become the Rock. Don’t forget his name wasn’t always Peter. It was Simon. It was only changed to Peter by Jesus, who called Peter the Rock upon which the Church would be built.

I think what we learn from Peter is that if we have the courage to get close to God, our lives just might be changed. Our very names might change. Our purpose might change. Abram and Sarai chose to stay close to God, and God changed their names too. We see this closeness that Abram had with God when he laughed in God’s face when God told him he would have a child, would be the father of nations. One does not laugh at the Creator of the Universe if they are not close to the Creator of the Universe. In this story, Abram become Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. God changes their names as a sign of reward for their trust in God and God’s promise. It is important to note here, too, that God’s name is also changed. God identifies God’s self with the name El Shaddai, or “God the Almighty”. Abraham and Sarah have stayed true and faithful to God, and God has not only changed their names, but also his very own name. We see these name changes in other stories, too. Jacob wrestled with God, and his name was changed. Our very own patron’s name was changed from Saul to Paul, as God changed Paul’s life and called him to new work.

Lent invites us to get close to God. Lent invites us to practice courage and dare to wrestle with God, to doubt, to trust, to wonder, to laugh at how much God loves perhaps even us because it hard sometimes to even believe. Lent invites us to see ourselves in a new way by being honest about who we are and how we are in need of God’s grace.

So, how do we do this? How do we get close to God? Jesus tells us. We take up our cross. He says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” We take up our cross by taking up all of ourselves: the good, the bad, the parts we are proud of, the parts we are ashamed of. We risk giving up the comfort of what we know to step into what God is calling us to- to risk coming in contact with the power of God’s love and grace. We offer all our fears, our shame, our sin, and our pride to God. We take up our cross and we follow Jesus.

As we begin the second week of Lent, I challenge us to sit with God, to exercise courage. To get close. To find a spot and bring our whole selves to God. Take some time this week to sit in the silence. Be bold.

God, what might you want to change my name to this Lent?
God, where are you calling me?
God, I am scared. Where are you?
God, what new thing are you asking me to do?
God, how can I do your work in the world?

And if we do this, we just might hear God speak to us. We just might feel God’s love and grace wrap all of our fears and shame, and doubt, and speak peace to our hearts. We just might hear God give us a new name.

The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday in Lent.

In our secular calendar, the First Day of Lent can fall as early as February 4 and as late as March 10. Its occurrence this year on February 14 has been the source of some amusement. Indeed, an email I received this morning from the Plain-Dealer came with this subject line: “Happy Ashentine’s Day.” This comedic concurrence of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day has also given rise to Internet memes that look like this: [holds up three large wooden “candy hearts’” with the following inscriptions painted on them, to look like Valentine’s Day Candy Hearts: “Repent,” and “U R Dust,” “Ash 2 Ash”]. What makes these images so comical is the apparent contradiction. The unspoken implication is that Valentine’s Day is a joyful holiday, while Ash Wednesday decidedly is not. The suggestion is that Cupid conjures warm and fuzzy emotions, while Ash Wednesday, with its reminder of our mortality, is cold and depressing. The subtext is that Ash Wednesday, with its emphasis on sin and repentance, has nothing to do with love. And my friends, I assure you: nothing could be further from the truth. Much like Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday finds all its purpose and meaning in a loving relationship – our relationship with God, the Source of all Love.

The hallmarks of a loving relationship are truthfulness and trust. Those who love us are the ones who can speak truth to us, and because we trust them, we can hear them when they speak the truth. On Ash Wednesday, the truth is spoken to us in love. In a moment, each of you is going to be invited to come forward to receive a reminder of this truth: that your time on this earth is finite. That this earthly life we share is but a sojourn. To speak plainly, today you will be reminded that you are going to die. Of course, we all know this to be true, so you would not think a reminder would be necessary. But this message is an eminently counter-cultural one. The world we live in conspires to have us ignore this truth, if not outright deny it.

The ways our culture does this are subtle, and we don’t always notice them. But take, for example, the explosive growth of the anti-aging market. As a consequence of the pandemic, and all the time we’ve spent looking at our faces on Zoom, the appetite for botox is growing by leaps and bounds among Gen Z (who are all still under the age of 30). Indeed, the TikTok hashtag #antiageing has more than 8 billion views. Which is to say that from a very young age, the world tells us we should do everything in our power to mask our mortality. But today your clergy, ministers of the Gospel who care deeply about your spiritual life, are going to send you a very different message. We will look into your eyes and speak this truth to you in love: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The world wants you to forget this, but the Church invites you today to remember that the God of love molded you from the dust. And when your earthly pilgrimage is over, your bodies will return to that very dust until they are remade at the day of resurrection. You will each receive a token of this reminder in the form of cross-shaped dust clinging to your foreheads, in the very place you were anointed with a cross on the day of your baptism. Just like that baptismal cross, this cross reminds you that you are a beloved Child of God. A Child of God who will return to dust, but whose density is eternal life with a loving Creator. A truth spoken in love and marked on our foreheads.

Then, after we have received our ashes, we will all get on our knees, either in body or spirit, and we will pray a special confession of sin called the Litany of Penitence. Most Sundays, we pray a general confession. One that acknowledges in language broad and sweeping that we have fallen short of loving God and our neighbor. But in this Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence, we use language vivid and precise to affirm the particular ways we have fall short of living the great commandments. We will lift our voices together to enumerate sins of pride, greed, and indifference. We will admit that we have failed to offer forgiveness as freely as we’re received it. That we’ve ignored the depth of human suffering and denied our privilege. That we have failed to care for our fragile island home, the earth that God entrusted to our care.

Ash Wednesday is a day to speak the truth in love. To come clean about our shortcomings, and not just our personal shortcomings, but the systems of oppression that are so much bigger than we are, in which we participate, nonetheless. And by acknowledging the cosmic power of sin, we are liberated to hear a message of profound grace and love: that our God, as the prophet Joel reminds us, is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” While hardly a traditional Valentine’s Day custom, this confession of our sin has everything to do with love. At the end of our Litany of Penitence, Jeanne, a priest in the Church of God, will stand before us and speak another truth in love: that God’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness is poured out freely and abundantly upon us. As we leave this place to continue our Lenten journey, we can do so unburdened by the weight of sin to share the love we have received this day with others.

Beloved friends in Christ: Today, on this First Day of Lent, we begin a 40-day journey together. This Sunday, that journey will take us into the wilderness with Jesus, as he goes head-to-head with the powers of sin and darkness. After walking faithfully together these next several weeks, our Lenten journey will bring us to the holiest week of the Christian year. We will follow Jesus to the Upper Room, where he will give us food and drink that leads to eternal life. We will follow Jesus to the foot of the cross, where he will freely give his life for us. We will keep vigil at the tomb as we mourn his death, before joyfully greeting the empty tomb on Easter morning to proclaim that he has conquered death forever, so we are free to live. It is the greatest love story ever told, and today it begins with sacred truths spoken in love and written on our hearts. Happy Valentine’s Day. And blessed Lent.