Épisodes

  • Locked Room

    Locked Room
    Apr 23 2026
    What if doubt isn’t the opposite of faith — it’s the doorway to it? This week’s sermon takes a fresh look at Doubting Thomas, and asks a harder question: not why Thomas doubted, but where he was when everyone else was hiding. From mass incarceration to immigration fear, from social media echo chambers to the rooms we personally refuse to enter, we’re challenged to stop “doing research” and start doing a real search — one that puts us face to face with people whose scars we’d rather not see. Because if you’re 41 years old and you’re not covered in scars, maybe you haven’t been loving people hard enough. Come find out what it means to go make some more.
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  • Disobeying Jesus

    Disobeying Jesus
    Oct 13 2025
    Disobeying Jesus Disobeying Jesusa sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10:30 AM Worship Service October 12, 2025at St John’s Presbyterian Church, Reno NevadaComplete Service on YouTube edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Luke 17-11-19 Sermons also available free on iTunes Let’s take a look at Luke. Luke. This is not the story about gratitude. But it’s okay. I understand if some of you, if you want to, pick an off-ramp. We’ve going on the express route to the Kingdom of God. Some of you may not be up for the trip. I’m okay with that. If you want to take an exit route right here, take an exit, go over, you know hang out at the truck stop for a while, whatever you want to do. Look at your phone. No problem. Just say what the sermon’s about. Sermon’s about gratitude. You’re fine. No worries. For the rest of you, the sermon is not about the one that came back in gratitude. The sermon’s about the nine, the nine who did what they were told. The nine who followed the great leader Jesus. The nine who followed the law. Yes, the law, Leviticus 14. Now my favorite Leviticus is 19, if you want to know. But 14’s okay. You know. But if you go, if you get Leviticus out, you know, go over into 19. Read that, too, because that’s the best. But Leviticus 14 talks about, if you are a leper, how to be clean. It is very entertaining reading. It involves two birds, one of which you kill. It involves shaving your entire body, head to toe, not once, but twice. It involves standing outside in the cold as sort of enforce home – it’s like a little light torture in the Bible to get clean. It takes about a week, a little over a week to eight days. It is the law. That is what the law says you do. Nine did it. Nine complied. Nine did what they were told to do. Jesus told them, “Go show yourself to the priest.” And that’s not just, “Hi, Priest. How you doing?” It’s that whole thing, Leviticus 14, light torture, standing outside getting shaved, killing a bird, other sacrifices. Bleah, the whole thing. Nine of them did it. Nine of them complied. Even though they didn’t have to. What a mind-blowing thing. You don’t have to follow the law and obey Jesus. What a mind-blowing thing. Because I submit to you this time in America is not the time where we need more sermons about gratitude. Gratitude’s fine. Gratitude’s a nice thing. Attitude of gratitude. I like the rhyme. But what Americans need now is consideration, reflection, and faith that might, just might lead you to disobey. Now all you that are upset, I told you, you could get off earlier. We have here a time where it says Jesus is okay with disobeying. He’s okay with breaking the law. He’s okay with not following scripture. And that wasn’t the Old Testament back then, that was The Testament. That was Bible. And Jesus is okay with that. In fact, not only is he okay, He asked where the other nine were. How come only one disobeyed me? How come only one broke the law? Where are the other nine? Wonder if Jesus is saying that now? Where is everybody? Faith makes you well. Not following the law, not even doing what the leader said. Faith makes you well. He doesn’t condemn the nine that followed the law and did what they were told. I mean, come on. I mean, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. Come on. He seems to be okay with being inclusive, with being okay with diversity, among responses. And he seems to be okay with that half-breed immigrant that shouldn’t be there, not following the law, but still having faith and still doing the right thing. Now, when we as Samaritans, we just think about, oh, Good Samaritan, teddy bears and rainbows and unicorns. We like the Samaritan. No, no, no. That was the cursed. That was a putdown. That was telling them they were half-breed unfaithful heretics that should not – good people do not talk to, that you do not even walk through their territory. Did you see it was in between the places that a good Jew did not go. He was illegal. Wasn’t supposed to be there. And Jesus praises him. Yow. Christy, did you come this week so that we’d be happy when Pat comes next week? I told Pat, “Don’t worry, buddy, they’ll be happy to see you.” He goes, “Thanks, Christy.” But let’s go back, back into time, to a simpler, lovelier time, back to the time of the ‘80s with Reagan in the White House. Oh, what a wonderful time. I want to tell you about not that people, but remember back then, back then the Russians shot down a Korean airliner. Boom, out of the sky, killing everybody. Remember, you can look it up, the families brought on the boat, the children crying for the father. Waves. It was a tense time. It ...
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  • Testify

    Testify
    Mar 2 2025
    Testify Testifya sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service February 16, 2025at St Peter’s Episcopal Churchedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. John 8:12-19 Sermons also available free on iTunes My pastor growing up, Dr. Paul Bauer, said “Sermonettes are for Christianettes.” That was probably his only joke in 20 years, but it was a good one. Good morning, Episcopalians. They’ve got me tied to this mic today, so you’re welcome. So today I’ve got scriptures, I love the scriptures you give me there. Define the relationship of Jesus Christ and God the Father without straying from Episcopalian beliefs or violating your Presbyterian doctrine, and do it in 10 minutes. Thanks. We’ll pass on that. I mean, there have been wars fought over this, and over a single Greek letter. We’ll pass on that. What we won’t pass on is the opportunity the scripture gives us to talk about testimony. Testimony. We need more testimony in this world. We don’t need more arguing. We don’t need more fact-checking. We don’t need more gotcha. We don’t need any snarky answers to people’s sincerely held beliefs. What we could use is testimony. Did you hear it in Jesus’s saying, “You don’t know where I came from or where I’m going?” If you know where you came from, if you know where you are going, you have a testimony. You have something to say. And I don’t know if any of you have been preachers, weekly preachers for 40 years. But I’ll tell you a secret. When you’re preaching every Sunday, everything that happens is sermon-fodder. You know, everything goes in the old chipper and comes out, I tell you. And so I was thinking about testimony and what does it mean to – and where is the good testimony and where things are. And would you believe it, in my inbox comes testimony from the Episcopalians. Woo-hah. And about 20 other denominations, including Presbyterian, about sanctuary. Now, you all know how hard it is to keep quiet in a sanctuary. You know how hard it is to keep me quiet in the sanctuary before service. Well, I’ll tell you, you Episcopalians work even harder on sanctuary. For over a quarter of the century, sanctuary has been kept in churches, synagogues, religious gathering places around the country, saying, hey, arrest people somewhere else than in church, at services, on a Sunday. But no longer. No longer. And that’s what the Episcopalians testified. Listen to this. Sean Rowe, presiding bishop. In the Kingdom of God as we understand it, immigrants and refugees are not at the edges, fearful and alone. Their struggles reveal the heart of God. We cannot worship freely if some of us live in fear. Sean Rowe, Episcopal bishop, presiding bishop. Even Jesus himself identifies as “stranger.” We must proclaim, particularly in this time, that we are all welcome in the places of worship, that all have – that all are welcome in places of worship. This seems a basic human right, one that we are called by God to serve. In the first week of the current administration I see he arrested over 4,500 people, including 1,000 people in a Sunday immigration enforcement blitz. At least one of these – this is from the court case that your church joined with the church I serve, and 21 other churches in testimony. And at least one of these enforcement actions occurred at a church in Georgia during the worship service. According to news coverage, an usher standing at the church entrance saw a group of ICE agents outside, locked the door. The agent said that they were there to arrest Wilson Velasquez, who had traveled to the United States from Honduras with his wife and three children in 2022. Immediately after crossing the border, they turned themselves in to U.S. authorities, requested asylum. They were given a court date, released after federal agents put a GPS tracking monitor on Velasquez’s ankle. After settling in suburban life, the family joined the Pentecostal Church, where they worshipped several times a week and helped with the music. They were listening to the pastor’s sermon when ICE agents arrived to arrest Velasquez. Although Velasquez had attended all his required check-ins at the Atlanta ICE office and had a court date scheduled to present his asylum case to a judge, ICE agents arrested him, explaining that they were simply looking for people with ankle bracelets. The pastor, Luis Ortiz, tried to reassure his congregation. But he said he could see the fear and tears in their faces. And if you’re upset that people are talking in sanctuary, imagine how upset you’d be if someone came in and arrested someone during the sermon. That should be an announcement every Sunday morning. But we’re not saying you’re bad, or you’re awful, or you vote for this person, ...
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