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Second Presbyterian Church, Baltimore

35 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 3 ratings

ON HIATUS. A live recording of sermons preached each Sunday at Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland, with the Rev. Dr. Tom Blair, the Rev. Amy Carlson, and the Rev. Jenn DiFrancesco. Updated weekly!

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Episodes

“Fetching Donkeys and Being Generous” - Sermon for April 5, 2020

April 06, 2020 10:07 - 17 minutes - 6.52 MB

Christianity has never been and will never be easy to put into practice. Like a professional musician or an athlete, a practicing Christian needs dedication in times when no glory or return on investment seems possible. As Rev. Tom describes, Jesus' followers were in those trying times right at the start of Holy Week - not just on Good Friday. We often depict Palm Sunday as a fun time with lots of singing and waving, and a donkey showing up as a church-event novelty. But for the two disciple...

“And the Walls Came Tumbling Down” - Sermon for March 29, 2020

March 30, 2020 01:46 - 15 minutes - 5.87 MB

Nobody has every said, "A crisis? Yippee!" But the children of God are called to "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Yes, even in times of unprecedented fear such as this. As Rev. Tom describes, like a trapeze artist jumping from one swinging bar to another, we will have times when our lives are up in the air, with no security to ground us. In these times, we are not called to find shelter too quickly,...

“The Recipe of Love” - Sermon for March 22, 2020

March 23, 2020 03:34 - 14 minutes - 6.35 MB

There's a saying: "A cook is only as good as the ingredients." If the essentials for a good recipe aren't there from the beginning, then the cook cannot make what's needed. As Rev. Amy describes today, whether it's cooking without sugar, building a house without a foundation, or trying to follow the law of God without knowing the love of God, we cannot succeed without the basics. When Jesus disputed with the scribes of the Temple, he didn't argue about burnt offerings or how to meticulously ...

"Another Brick in the Wall" - Sermon for March 15, 2020

March 16, 2020 10:22 - 15 minutes - 6.67 MB

Today's church services were held online only, due to coronavirus concerns. The full 11 AM service can be viewed at: https://www.facebook.com/secondpresby/videos/690774551660768/ The Church has always needed to face uncertainty. Whether this uncertainty was viruses, war, poverty, or other calamities - the followers of Jesus have always been a part of this world and its troubles. As Rev. Tom describes, Jesus and anyone who would be his disciple must face another difficulty - they never really ...

"More Than Meets the Eye" - Sermon for March 8, 2020

March 10, 2020 20:07 - 13 minutes - 5.45 MB

For ages, people have referred to those without awareness or discernment as blind - metaphorically speaking. Whether the blindness is physical, intellectual or spiritual, all types of blindness separate us from others and from good gifts that could be right in front of us. Today, Rev. Tom describes the story of Jesus meeting the blind beggar, Bartimaeus. Although it's short, the story has an important detail - that Bartimaeus left behind his only possession - his cloak - to reach Jesus. This ...

"The Look of Love" - Sermon for February 16, 2020

February 18, 2020 14:39 - 15 minutes - 5.92 MB

Bible reading - Mark 7: 1-23 Today, Rev. Tom describes how Jesus deals with hypocrisy, and how we can deal with it too - not with hypocrites (though those are always present), but the hypocrisy within ourselves. As he illustrates in two stories, humans have a hard time being true to themselves - our desires simply make us blind to our own true motivations. Jesus needed to rebuke the Pharisees not because they didn't respect the law or didn't think it mattered, but because they were followin...

“How Much Baggage Do We Need?” - Sermon for February 9, 2020

February 11, 2020 18:00 - 19 minutes - 7.64 MB

Good project managers don't plan a project without know they have the proper resources of people, materials and time. But as Rev. Tom describes today, Jesus also knows what his followers need to NOT have. The baggage that we all carry around with us can weight us down, keeping us from our true calling in Christ. Jesus helps us with holding on to the unshakable faith that truly sustains us, and also removes those parts of our lives that burden us with pain and anxiety. Like Auguste Rodin, who...

“Interrupting Jesus” - Sermon for February 2, 2020

February 03, 2020 21:32 - 15 minutes - 5.94 MB

We are experts at insisting on our own way, but the Love of God is not so intransigent. On this Super Bowl Sunday, people may cheer for a football player who is goal oriented, but Jesus has never followed the crowd. In today's sermon, Rev. Tom describes how Jesus doesn't keep a rigid schedule, but turns from his way to receive a gentle touch from someone in need. In a famous story of Jesus' healing, he heals two people in impossible circumstances - a poor, outcast woman suffering for years, ...

“What Have You to Do with Me, Jesus?” - Sermon for January 26, 2020

January 28, 2020 20:50 - 18 minutes - 7.23 MB

What's the worst thing about demon possession? Is it that demons are spooky and threatening in an Anne Rice or Stephen King kind of way? In today's sermon, Rev. Tom describes how the evil influence of demons terrify us most because of their control over our lives, forcing us into self-destructive actions and separation from others - a situation that is just as familiar in the modern day as in Jesus' time. By curing the demoniac, Jesus performed both an individual act and a commentary on the w...

“Far More than Parables” - Sermon for January 19, 2020

January 20, 2020 13:39 - 16 minutes - 7.15 MB

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, we take a special look at someone who also embodied the promotion of justice and deep spirituality - Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Rev. Tom describes how the fame-loving young Íñigo had his life undone and reformed by what has become known as a "cannonball moment." Severely injured in battle, Ignatius turned from his military career to a long period of rigorous asceticism, praying for hours in a cave and begging on the streets in Catalonia. It was this ti...

“Can You Keep a Secret?” - Sermon for January 12, 2020

January 13, 2020 01:47 - 12 minutes - 5.44 MB

What truths does a secret hide? If the secret only hides itself, it can be used for good or ill. But sometimes, a secret can be used to reveal a greater truth. Such is the case with the secrecy that Jesus kept around his identity during his ministry. As Rev. Tom describes, Jesus did not seek the limelight as a healer. Many came to him to be healed, but this pointed the way towards Jesus' deeper ministry — the healing of people's spirits in selfless love. Not only did he quiet those whom he h...

"Beyond Boundaries" - Sermon for January 5, 2020

January 06, 2020 19:55 - 14 minutes - 5.78 MB

This Epiphany Sunday, we’re following the Narrative Lectionary as it shows us a more profound manifestation of Jesus than just a baby boy that the Wise Men visit. Beginning our journey through the Gospel of Mark, Rev. Tom describes several stories when Jesus healed the sick and troubled. These manifestations are not merely to display Jesus’ power, but also to show how the mercy of God works within our lives. Jesus’ acts of healing were focused on the outcast and the unclean – people pushed t...

“An Orderly Account” - Sermon for December 22, 2019

December 23, 2019 13:21 - 16 minutes - 6.44 MB

Back when the Gospel writer Luke was a physician, he might not have had orderlies, but he definitely had an orderly ... account of the good news of Jesus. In this Sunday’s sermon, Rev. Tom leads us into the New Testament with a birth narrative – but John the Baptist’s, not Jesus’. This story of John’s birth sets an orderly foundation of how the Messiah would come to the world to save it. John’s parents – Elizabeth and the priest Zechariah – were elderly, and were not expected to bear a child...

"A Welcome 'Welcome Home'" - Sermon for December 15, 2019

December 18, 2019 11:42 - 15 minutes - 5.91 MB

"You can't go home again." This may be a sad saying for many people, but God's ways are about creating all things new - new blessings for a new generation of God's people. In today's sermon, Rev. Tom describes how Israel received a blessing of restoration from captivity in Babylon. They received not just freedom, but the means to recreate the Temple and altar of God, to bring back worship in Jerusalem. However, this restoration was painful to many older people, who remembered the glory of th...

“Finders Keepers” - Sermon for November 24, 2019

November 25, 2019 19:03 - 19 minutes - 8.18 MB

"Ignorance is bliss" may be an often-quoted proverb, but it's not in Proverbs. It definitely doesn't apply to King Josiah of the kingdom of Judah. As Rev. Tom describes, Josiah was a righteous king, but was missing out on essential information. During renovation of the Temple, the high priest Hilkiah found a book of the law of God. It didn't take Josiah long to realize that the people of Israel had strayed far from the ways of God. What is a person to do when they learn something that change...

“Brokenhearted God” - Sermon for November 10, 2019

November 11, 2019 15:13 - 16 minutes - 6.55 MB

Does reading the Bible seem dry to you sometimes? The paragraphs of who begat whom? All those numbers in Numbers? Even the lessons in Proverbs can seem distant and esoteric. Then the book of Hosea is the one for you! Here, God's emotions are shown in deep relief. As Rev. Tom describes, the prophet Hosea showed God's anguish over Israel in the most personal of ways - through his own family. By marrying a scandalous wife and giving their children scandalous names, Hosea was deliberately shocki...

"If It Is of the Lord, Then Follow" - Sermon for November 3, 2019

November 04, 2019 18:57 - 19 minutes - 8.11 MB

Should you put God to the test? Deuteronomy 6 clearly says no, but Malachi 3 says that the children of Israel should do just that, by seeing how God responds abundantly to faithful tithing. In today’s sermon, Rev. Tom describes how one prophet tested God, in a competition against hundreds of other prophets of false idols – with stakes far higher than any season of “American Idol”. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest on Mount Carmel at a time when the Hebrew faith was at one o...

"The Best Advice of All" - Sermon for October 27, 2019

October 28, 2019 19:04 - 19 minutes - 8.21 MB

There's a saying: "Don't give advice. The wise don't need it, and the foolish won't heed it." Of course, humans almost always fall somewhere in between wise and foolish. So we need to seek out advice, and judge that advice apart from what our desires may want to be true. In today's sermon, Rev. Tom describes when the foolishness of a king split a nation into two. King Rehoboam of Israel unfortunately did not inherit the wisdom of his father Solomon, his grandfather David, or his great aunt A...

"A Link in a Chain of Life; Not the Key" - Sermon for October 20, 2019

October 23, 2019 17:22 - 22 minutes - 10.2 MB

No understanding of how God and humans interact in the Bible is complete without studying the life of King David. As Rev. Tom describes, David was a person of faith unlike any who had come before. Here was a leader confident in his abilities and his connection with God. When David inquired of God, God responded. However, this self-assurance of David's came crashing down, right at the threshold of his greatest accomplishment - the recovery of the Ark of the Covenant and the establishing of Je...

"Where You Go, I Will Go" - Sermon for October 13, 2019

October 16, 2019 15:39 - 15 minutes - 6.85 MB

The old expression, "You don't know what you have until it's gone," may apply to many people, but some folks just know how to hold on. As Rev. Jenn describes to us today, there are countless things in our lives that we can't control. But we can control how we love, and how we respond to each other - graciously and with commitment. In the story of Ruth and Naomi, their tragic and unexpected circumstances would lead Naomi to bitterness at her loss and isolation. But Ruth would not let her go. ...

"Written on Our Hearts" - Sermon for October 6, 2019

October 07, 2019 13:43 - 16 minutes - 6.85 MB

We have a guest speaker at Second Presbyterian Church for today's services - the multi-talented MaryAnn McKibben Dana! When Moses brought down the laws from Mount Sinai, it can feel like a New Year's ball-drop might as well come down with him. The laws of God are an inspiration for us to seek goodness in our lives, but they can be as impossible for us limited humans to follow as those New Year's resolutions we always break before February. Rev. MaryAnn describes how all these things we are c...

“Salvation in the Reeds” - Sermon for September 29, 2019

September 29, 2019 20:06 - 21 minutes - 8.57 MB

We humans tend to look for salvation in grandeur and radiant splendour. Rarely do we consider salvation sleeping in a simple manger, dying on a cross, hiding in a valley and being fed by ravens... or being placed in a basket in the mud and reeds of a river. Today's Lectionary story is the famous one of the Pharaoh of Egypt ordering the deaths of every male Hebrew newborn, and he would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling kids. For after a desperate mother trusted her...

“Holy Wrestling” - Sermon for September 22, 2019

September 24, 2019 17:03 - 14 minutes - 5.85 MB

Not everyone who wrestles with you is an enemy. This Sunday's Lectionary reading is about that epic "Fight to the Dawn" - a match between Jacob and... someone. A man? An angel? God? There isn't an obvious answer. But that uncertainty of a clear meaning is much like the lesson of the story itself. As Rev. Tom explains, a part of life is the struggle. Whether it's on a personal, interpersonal, or international level, the interactions we face in life can be trying, so difficult that all we can ...

“While We Wait” - Sermon for September 15, 2019

September 17, 2019 13:25 - 14 minutes - 5.84 MB

This week's Bible reading, from the Narrative Lectionary, Year 2, is Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7. Do we need to protect ourselves from God? Can we keep ourselves safe by running away like Jonah, or hiding like Adam and Eve? In today’s sermon, Rev. Amy looks at when the story of Abraham and Sarah takes a bit of a dark turn, when Sarah laughs at God’s promise that she will have a son. The story begins with faithful generosity to three strangers. But is Sarah‘s laugh protecting herself from hope? C...

“Living with Blessings and Boundaries” - Sermon for September 8, 2019

September 09, 2019 19:53 - 18 minutes - 6.71 MB

It's a new season at Second Presbyterian! With the return to regular church services (remember - back to 9:00 and 11:00 AM next Sunday!), we leave our journey with Paul and instead join our fellow Christians following the Narrative Lectionary - Season 2. The narrative begins at the first moment when God became intimately connected to humanity - God's personal interaction with the first man and woman. This story challenges us to ask: what has God given to us, and how does that show what God w...

Sermon for August 11, 2019 - "Should We Then Sin?"

August 12, 2019 18:18 - 14 minutes - 5.96 MB

When we receive grace, does it leave us unchanged? The apostle Paul uses such a rhetorical device to engage his audience - and us - in understanding the nature of dying to sin. It's not just disliking sin, or sinning a bit less... we have died to sin, completely. In our third Sunday reading from Romans, Rev. Tom describes how Paul sees baptism not just as a single event, but a life-long process for a believer. We are baptized into Christ not only to die as he did, but to live in a newness of...

Sermon for August 4, 2019 - "Unbelievable"

August 06, 2019 13:06 - 13 minutes - 5.35 MB

What qualifies as a good bet, an investment that has an acceptable rate of return for the risk involved? In this week's text from Romans, Paul describes how God made an unbelievable investment of love in us - taking an impossible risk for people who showed no qualities worthy of that extravagant expense. Rev. Tom highlights this extreme generosity through Jesus, telling two stories that touched his heart recently about where one finds true giving of oneself, and treating others with mercy an...

Sermon for July 28, 2019 - "Faith Enough?"

July 30, 2019 14:54 - 16 minutes - 6.41 MB

Our Sizzlin' Summer Sermon Series enters the dog days of summer as we begin the book in which Paul writes his most dogged pursuit of a systematic review of Christian life - the epistle to the Romans. Rev. Tom starts off by reminding us that Paul was no lone wolf, but saw faith as a feature of the community as a whole. Thus, his letters were not the work of a solitary figure scribbling in a Rembrandt painting with a black background. They were a community project - from the people he called h...

Sermon for July 14, 2019 - "Reconciling Into Community"

July 16, 2019 00:38 - 17 minutes - 6.82 MB

Our Sizzling Summer Sermon Series heats up as Paul dives into the very core of what it means to be a community. As Rev. Amy explains, the new life in Christ is not a blank canvas or a perfectly clean slate where any problems are smoothed over. As ambassadors for Christ, believers in Corinth receiving Paul's letters and believers here today have a rough, uneasy task - the ministry of reconciliation. Just like how God reconciled with humanity, Paul needed to reconcile with the Corinthians with...

Sermon for July 7, 2019 - “Our Life's Treasure”

July 11, 2019 20:37 - 14 minutes - 13.4 MB

We continue our Sizzling Summer Sermon Series with Paul's letters by moving on to his follow-up letter to the Corinthians. Rev. Tom describes how Paul's preaching was revolutionary, insisting that the church was called to be a counterculture. This brought great hardship to the church (and Paul too!), in its day-to-day working out of a new society of radical welcome and love. Such a great gospel, given to fragile and struggling believers? Yes, like a treasure in clay jars, this world-changing...

Sermon for June 30, 2019 - "If Love Is the Answer, What Was the Question?"

July 01, 2019 00:25 - 16 minutes - 6.17 MB

Paul didn't write the "Love Chapter" in 1 Corinthians so people could have a convenient Bible passage to read at weddings. The church of Corinth knew how to do weddings. What they didn't know was how to live in a new Christian community that was brought together in love. Rev. Tom describes how Paul debunks the idea that the variety of the believers' spiritual gifts - such as glossolalia - could be used as a "status indicator." The church is not a talent show; it's a fellowship where extraord...

Sermon for June 16, 2019 - "The Cross-Shaped Good News"

June 19, 2019 10:42 - 19 minutes - 7.06 MB

After a week off for a special presentation on Pentecost, we continue our journeys with Paul. This week, Paul writes to the church in Corinth with a message that can be summarized: "Shape up!" Corinth was a newly rebuilt city with a mix of people - Romans, Greeks, slaves, free - and the church included that diversity and also its difficulties. Rev. Tom teaches us about how the shape of our lives - whether hectic or orderly or messy - can, like Paul, reflect the cruciform-shaped life of Chris...

Sermon for June 2, 2019 - "A Sure and Certain Arrival"

June 05, 2019 17:12 - 20 minutes - 27.6 MB

This week, we start off our Sizzlin' Summer Sermon Series! Through the summer, we'll be looking at the letters of the Apostle Paul. Rev. Tom begins with Paul's first letter, written to the believers in Thessalonica. We often imagine Paul as a solo preacher, a lone ranger in his many travels. But Paul was always working within and for the Christian communities. And as a practical theologian, he was concerned about addressing a community's needs. Here, he faces a question that has troubled Chr...

Sermon for May 26, 2019 - "The Last Full Measure"

May 30, 2019 00:13 - 18 minutes - 16.6 MB

This Memorial Day weekend, Rev. Tom Blair discusses the choices made by others which have added to our Christian faith. First, of course, is Jesus, who laid down his life for for his friends, and for us. And there are countless others who have made profound sacrifices that, unseen by them, now benefit and enrich our faith. Through a "chain of heritage," we are connected to the first people who gathered together as Christians. As we live out the gift of love that began with Jesus, our own act...

Sermon for May 19, 2019 - "Marvel"

May 20, 2019 01:00 - 15 minutes - 7.36 MB

Welcome to the first episode of the podcast for Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland! This series will be updated weekly with the sermons preached at our Sunday services. Today, we're starting off with an end... or rather, an Endgame. Rev. Amy describes how she's become a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how each hero adds their own distinctive story that can change the world. In the early church, Peter had a radical story of a vision, and in the church today, we hav...

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