The Rev. Noah Van Niel

Christ and St. Luke’s

September 11, 2022 (Homecoming Sunday)

Proper 19 (C): Exodus 32:17; Psalm 118*; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

When I was playing football in college, during the off-season, we were required to get up very early in the morning to trek across the river to the athletic facility for workouts. We’d often be up before 5am to get to the locker room in time to get ready for the first whistle. Needless to say, this was not the typical college student’s schedule. More than a few of us had stories of passing roommates or friends who were coming in from a night of activity, while we were on our way out. And even though I am a morning person by nature, this schedule was extreme. So, I found that when the alarm went off and I wanted nothing more than to throw it across the room, some extra motivation was needed to get up and go. And so, I used a mantra that would break through my sleepy haze and get me moving: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!” …so get moving you lazy lug. (I added that last part in myself).

Continue reading →

The Rev. Noah Van Niel

Christ and St. Luke’s

August 28^th, 2022

Proper 17 (C): Sirach 10:12-18; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13:1-8; 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14

In our house we have recently begun reading the Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, to my oldest son. This is a parenting milestone I have long looked forward to since one of my most vivid and fondest childhood memories was having my father read those same stories to me when I was a boy. Though it comes second in the narrative order of the books, we have begun with the first composed and most famous of the septet, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It has been so much fun to enter back into that magical world with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy; a world that is at once strange and familiar, which is so often the case when we revisit something from our past later on in life. The story is unchanged, but we have changed, and so we experience it as new and old at the same time. I was also excited to revisit these stories because it was only in my 20’s that I learned Lewis had written them as Christian allegories, and given my current occupation, I was curious to see where and how those themes would reveal themselves.

Continue reading →

The Rev. Noah Van Niel

Christ and St. Luke’s

August 14^th, 2022

Proper 15 (C): Jeremiah 23:23-29; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

The late Bishop, Barbara C. Harris, the first female Bishop ordained in the Anglican Communion, whom I got to know while growing up and serving with her in Massachusetts, had a sermon she used to preach that began in a very memorable way. Bishop Barbara, all 5ft nothing of her, skinny as a rail, hunched over, would march herself up into whatever pulpit she was ascending, and in her smoker’s rasp would bellow out “JESUS IS DANGEROUS.”

“Wait, what?” That’s what her listeners would always think. So she would say it again. “JESUS IS DANGEROUS.” 

“Dangerous? Did she say dangerous? Courageous, sure. Strong? Wise? Compassionate? Loving? Of course. But dangerous? Jesus? Surely, she must be mistaken.” She was not.

Continue reading →