Ernest F. Campbell Selected Sermons

Pentecost C My Personal Relationship with Jesus May 26, 1980 By Rev. Ernest F. Campbell The meaning of Pentecost is simply this; we can all experience a personal relationship with God. In the Gospel of John , we read that Jesus ‘breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit .’ When you are close enough to someone to feel the warmth of their breath on your skin, it implies a closeness and intimacy in that relationship. Jesus predicted the possibility of this kind of personal relationship while He was talking to the woman at the well at Jericho . “The time is coming,” He said, “When true worshipers will not have to go to this temple or that mountain to know God, but they will know His truth through the gift of their own spiritual intuition. Listen, the day is coming when all men, not just a few prophets, but all men, will be able to enjoy a personal relationship with God.”  God will become the companion and counselor of any who seek Him. The possibility of this personal relatio...

  Easter 7 C Dare to Love One Another May 12, 2013 By Rev. Ernest F. Campbell Margaret and I enjoy watching the Bill Moyer Show on National Public Television . Last Monday night he had as his guests the parents of one of the children killed at Sandyhook Elementary School . They were both highly articulate, soft spoken, compassionate human beings. They shared a determined grief – let’s come together and do what we can, change what we can, to keep our children protected. I wonder if anyone saw that program? I believe you would have been as impressed as we were with their concern for all of God’s children, even while speaking through their tears. As it turned out, they are church-going Episcopalians .  I believe that what we saw in that interview relates to our Lord’s priestly prayer for all of us in today’s gospel. “May the love with which you have loved me be in them.” It is a powerful comfort to know that this has been, is now, and will be Christ’s prayer for us forever. For ...

 Easter 6 C Hospitality May 13, 2007 By Rev. Ernest F. Campbell While savoring our morning coffee I asked my wife Margaret , mother of four and+ grandmother of  eight,  for her best definition of “ motherhood .” Her answer came as easily as I asked the question: “Motherhood, she said, is a life-long relationship intent on positive nurturing.” A man named Simons wrote: “If you would reform the world from its errors and vises, begin by enlisting the mothers.” Abe Lincoln wrote: “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” An old Jewish saying puts the worth of mothers like this: “God could not be everywhere, and so he made mothers.” And one more from a Spanish proverb , which in my opinion, calls for some further discussion: “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.” In truth, for good or evil, a mother has a powerful and lasting influence on her children. A woman is everyone’s first home. Before anyone has even seen a newborn child, a relation...

 Easter 5 C The Panic of Transition April 20, 2008 By Rev. Ernest F. Campbell Before you join any group the most important question to ask is, “Who is in charge?” we all know from personal experience the importance of leadership! Depending on the situation, loss of leadership could range from depression and grief to panic and fear. What are we going to do now without our leader? Jesus has been with his disciples for three years, and now he tells them that he is about to die. This is the man they have learned to love and trust. They have bet their lives on his leadership. Jesus can see their concern on their faces… what are we going to do without you? As we speak, we know that the Diocese of Oregon and Eastern Oregon are looking for bishops or a bishop. St. Paul’s in Walla Walla is looking for a new rector. Any time there is a period of transition, there is bound to be feelings of grief and uncertainty. Things will be different. What things? How will the inevitable changes affect ...

 Easter 4 C Listening with an Open Mind April 20, 1986 By Rev. Ernest F. Campbell The key to any personal growth and development depends on our willingness to listen with an open mind. There is one group of humans that does this better than any other…. namely children . Children are more teachable than adults because they have fewer preconceived ideas and prejudice filters through which new information must pass. Let me see if I can illustrate what I mean. Scripture tells us that Jesus walked on water . We adults hear that information and run it through our preconceived ideas and our prejudice filters that insist -- that because you can not walk on water, and because you have never seen anyone else walk on water, there must be some other rational explanation. Adults might think… if Jesus were close to shore and if he was walking on a sand bar it may appear as if he were walking on water. Adults may then conclude that -- Jesus had a keen sense of the dramatic, but was no more ...

Easter 3 C Energized Instructed Eucharist at Camp Cross May 3, 1992 By Rev. Ernest F. Campbell As I read and re-read today’s Gospel I began to pick up on the excitement and energy it portrays. Now, the apostles were still in shock, still not sure of any specific new direction for their lives, return to something they do know… fishing. On the lake of Galilee , it was common to fish at night; working by torch light. Unfortunately, like many fishing expeditions, their night of hard work had yielded nothing. For professionals, that was like a day without pay. Towards dawn they decided to head in…tired and most likely a little dejected. Then in dawns early light, when shades of gray make distant objects hard to distinguish, they hear a voice from the shore, “Have you caught any fish?” How many times have fishermen heard that question? It’s the moment of truth. The sound of the stranger’s voice skips with bell-tone clarity over the calm water. Their reply came skipping back…. “...

Easter 2 C God Has Acted How Shall We Respond  April 2, 1989 By  Rev. Ernest F. Campbell  God has  acted! Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. But… what if you can’t believe it? What if you, or someone you know, simply can not or will not believe that a man, dead for approximately 40 hours, could be restored to life.  If you or someone you know find this hard to believe, you should be comforted to know that you are in good company.  In Mark’s account: Jesus appeared “First to Mary of Magdala . She went and told the news to those who had been with Him, who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.”  “After that He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked… and they went and told the news to the rest, but they did not believe it.”  From Luke’s account: “When the women returned from the tomb to tell the Apostles about the stone being rolled away and the two men ...