Westminster Presbyterian Church, Alexandria Va

I fear that over the last decade or so, we have become a nation whose unresolved anger – often growing out of centuries of real and profound grievance – has led us to slap the faces of even the people with whom we share earth and stars and common dreams. While one interpretation of this week’s election is a rejection on the part of the American people of an unbridled expression of anger, whatever anger we have within our body politic will not likely disappear with the results of an election. We cannot just vote our anger away. We must as a people face, acknowledge, understand and address our anger so that we can channel it toward constructive ends; otherwise, it will continue to consume the institutions of our common life – such as churches and schools and businesses and families – which are not immune from the lasting sting of its slap. Following a tradition that began in 1982, Westminster celebrates Remembrance Sunday on the Sunday closest to Veterans Day. We do so to re

I continue to be grateful for the celebration you gave me this summer on the fortieth anniversary of my ordination to the ministry. Among the things that means is that I have been involved in exactly forty stewardship campaigns – that process each Fall in which the church asks each member to make a financial pledge for the upcoming year to support the work of the church. But none of these previous forty campaigns has had much in common – at least outwardly – with the one we are beginning today. This one is indeed “Stewardship in a Time of Coronavirus.” Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is 2 Corinthians 8:1-15.

"My hunch is that whenever this season of our lives is over, our beloved community of faith will looks a little different. Yes, we will still be Presbyterians; yes, we will still be Westminster. But we will have changed. We will have reformed." Rev. Jacob Bolton preaches on the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8.

If we allow the words Paul spoke to the early church speak to our day and time, Paul calls us to rejoice. What on earth can he mean? Has he no accurate sense of the appropriate time to issue such a call? Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is Philippians 4:1-9.

"However Jesus said it, we can doubt the number he used mattered that much. The point is the interplay: the two-way dynamic between the gathering of God's people and the presence of God's authority and power." Rev. Patrick Hunnicutt preaches on the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, in celebration of World Communion Sunday. The Scripture lesson is Matthew 18:15-20.

The Parable of the Sower is thus not simply about our effort, nor simply about any success we might meet. Rather, the parable is about mystery: the mystery of our putting ourselves forward, on this earth, in this life, in this day and time and culture in which we live. Ultimately, the interaction between seed and soil, effort and outcome, is a mystery, residing in the heart and hands mind of God. Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is Matthew 13:1-9.

My friends, the only way we will survive this fall in our country, our city, our church is if, over the next several months, we strive to see that we are part of a community and strive to see – and even celebrate – the blessing of God as it is bestowed in the lives of other people, many of whom we have not heretofore considered as worthy as we are. Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is Matthew 20:1-16.

This one sentence forms a theme of the Joseph story and touches nearly all the characters in Genesis: "you intended to do evil…God intended it for good." Only time, faith, wise discernment of events will tell us whether the things which so pain us one day we will another day interpret as God using for good. Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, concluding a sermon series on Genesis. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 50:15-21.

"When Judah stepped forward to Joseph, he brought a self, a family, a people, a nation together. The promise of God kept its long and winding road toward fruition." Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, as part of a sermon series on Genesis. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 44:18-34.

"There's a little bit of life left--how are you going to use it?" The Rev. Whitney Fauntleroy preaches on the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is Matthew 16:21-28.

The Rev. Jacob Bolton preaches on the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is Exodus 1:8--2:10, and is read by Maggie Chamberlain.

"In this celebration of unity in Psalm 133, we also find the seeds of its critique. Unity isn't always what it's cracked up to be--at least, not for everyone." Rev. Patrick Hunnicutt preaches on the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

I think a deeper reason Joseph may appeal to us is that we are attracted to people who suffer misfortune but don’t dwell on it; people who are victims but refuse to draw their identity from what has happened to them. We admire people who focus on the future and rather than the past, who keep their eyes on the prize ahead rather than on the pain of the Pit behind. We want to be like them, act like them, flourish like them. We want the Lord to be with us in prosper all we do. Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time as part of a series on Genesis. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 37:23-28; 41:51; and 45:25-28.

What has always attracted my attention about this story is the limp – the fact that in his wrestling with God, Jacob emerges blessed, but limping; limping, but blessed. Limping and blessed! Sometimes when we wrestle with God these things emerge in the course of our wrestling. We are left limping, a holy limp, holy because to be blessed is to incorporate all that has been a part of our lives into our lives, in a way that that even the painful parts – the sources of our limp – can become sources of strength, wisdom, blessing. Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time as part of a sermon series on Genesis. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 32:22-32.

In the world to which we are accustomed – in which love leads to marriage rather than marriage to love, in which both parties have choice, and in which marriage is to only one person, the differences with the world of Rachel and Leah and Jacob can make this story seem laughable, offensive, or just too plain ridiculous to speak to us. But if we stick with it, as is the case with most Biblical stories, we can learn something from it, and leave this hour of worship not quite the same person we were when the hour began. Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, as part of a sermon series on Genesis. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 29:15-23, 25-28, 30-35.

"Like so many people who marry, in marrying into the family of Abraham and Sarah, Rebekah takes on all the blessings and burdens of that family – particularly as these have shaped and formed Isaac into the person he has become by the time she links her life and destiny with his." Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, as part of a sermon series on Genesis. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 25:19-28.

"Taking Rebekah into his mother’s tent represents for Isaac a healing, a retrieving from and connecting with all the things in his and his family’s past that have hindered his life as well as those things that have given him life. Isaac pieces together the past in a place of pain and beauty, so that healing comes in the present, and joy comes in the morning." Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, as part of a sermon series on Genesis. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 24:62-69.

"I’m here because of the youth. The high school youth of this church have inspired me in ways these days when joy is hard to find. A few of our youth told me they wanted to hear from me. I didn’t want to speak. But then I thought about the people I’ve grown to love during the sleepless nights on church floors, both upstairs and abroad. So here I am, and here we are." The Rev. Whitney Fauntleroy preaches on the fourtheenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Sunday of Independence Day weekend. She is joined by Westminster youth Anna Harrington (Scripture), Michaela McCormack (Children's Sermon), Conrad McIntosh (Reflection and Solo), and Michael Luhman (Prayers). The Scripture lesson is Romans 7:15-25.

We welcome the Rev. Maggie Hayward to preach in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Rev. Larry Hayward's ordination. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 22:1-14.

As I enter this next and final phase of my own ministry, I stand ready to work with the Session and staff to lead Westminster in doing something we have not yet done during my tenure here: place on the Session Table a significant social and political issue to discern what God is leading us to do as a congregation. Rev. Larry Hayward preaches on the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture lesson is Genesis 37:12-25a.