Sermons By Alan Bentrup

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,” he says. Let your heart love like Jesus. Let your mind be filled with the same concerns as Jesus. Let your feet walk in step Jesus. Let your hands touch the world like Jesus. Let your eyes see the world like Jesus sees the world. Live a life yoked with Jesus Christ, living and moving and breathing as one, and you will find rest for your soul.

Loving Jesus first doesn’t mean only loving Jesus. We still love our friends, our families, our communities, and ourselves. But when we love those things first, before or without Jesus at the center, that’s idolatry. When our first love is Jesus, we can love our families best. Even and perhaps especially - when that means calling out and working to heal the sin and brokenness we see in our families. When our first love is Jesus, we can love our country and community best. Even - and perhaps especially - when that means calling out and working to heal the sin and brokenness we see in our country and community. When our first love is Jesus, we can love ourselves best. Even - and perhaps especially - when that means calling out and working to heal the sin and brokenness we see in ourselves.

We’re in different homes, different cities, different places, with our own gifts and abilities. But we’re together, even when we’re apart. (Preached from my back yard for the good folks of Holy Trinity, Clemson)

What do we do when everything is changing?

How are we the light of the world when the power has gone out?

What can we learn from Simeon?

We can hear all about him, we can read the stories, we can sing the songs, and we know something about Jesus. But, like the beach, like our favorite bands, like the Holy Land, just learning about it doesn’t suffice. You have to encounter it in real life to truly begin to grasp what is. When we truly encounter Jesus Christ, it changes everything.

A week late in posting, but my sermon from January 12, 2020, at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Columbia, SC.

We all want to be remembered. It means that we matter, we belong, we exist. When we are remembered, someone else bears witness to all those things. When we are remembered it is as if our life is being put back together, because it is. That is exactly what is happening. We are being made whole.

When our temples fall, we discover that God has always been with us – in the changes, chances, and chaos of life; in the pain, loss, and disappointment. Stone by stone, God rebuilds our lives. Stone by stone, God restores the original beauty of our life and world. Stone by stone, a new temple arises from the rubble.

What did I learn from the night my life changed?

A sermon preached at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Columbia, S.C., on the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord.

Through our highs and our lows, our hopes and our fears, our wins and our losses... We are in this together.

As I was riding in the back of Ismael’s truck, with my family safe and on the way to meet friends, I texted my mom and sisters. I joked that we hopped in some guys truck to hitch a ride, and my sister replied back saying “You’re not supposed to take rides from strangers :-)” Here’s what I told her: “Nobody is a stranger in Houston right now. These folks can’t get to their house, but they have a truck so they are helping others.” That is kingdom hospitality. That is the kingdom of God.

But this love, God’s love, just as likely to bring us stress and division rather than peace and harmony. And this is Good News.

One reality of life is waiting; waiting for someone to show up, for something to happen, for things to change.

This has to stop. And we have to change the way we speak to and about each other.

John 17:20-26 Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. "Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

A sermon for Easter 3C, preached at St. Michael & All Angels, Columbia, S.C.

We Have Seen the Risen Christ (A Sermon for for the Feast of the Resurrection - 2019) All Saints Episcopal Church (Beech Island, SC) John 20:1-18 April 21, 2019 We are called to go from this place and tell the world that pain and sorrow and death and despair will never...can never...have the final say. So go out and share your story. Go out and share the story.