St. John's Episcopal Church Montclair

St. John's Episcopal Church Montclair

di The Rev. Carrie Cabush

Stagione 2026

The Spirit of Truth | May 10, 2026

This week I was reading John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis, and a line jumped out at me so much I had to read it a couple of times. John reflects: “I am prone to despair, and so I know its powerful voice; it just doesn’t happen to be true.” Despair is loud, but loud and true are not the same thing.

Many Dwelling Places | May 3, 2026 sermon by Libby Clarke

Jesus tells us that the Father’s house has many dwelling places. I used to hear that as a promise about what is waiting for us, rooms already built, already assigned, already ours. But I think it means something more active than that. When we genuinely welcome each other, when we enter the work of loving someone as they actually are, we discover more of the house. Welcome is not the management of existing space — it’s how the house grows.

Abundant Life | April 26, 2026

One Sunday, early in my priesthood, a particularly bad variant of COVID was making the rounds. Many people were quarantining at home that morning, including my fellow priest and most of our Altar Guild and ushers. Everything was going smoothly, until it got to communion. I realized I had forgotten to count how many people were in the congregation, so I didn’t know how much bread to consecrate....

But We Had Hoped | April 19, 2026

The beloved slogan of St. John’s is “many paths, one journey.” And one of those paths is the road to Emmaus. Even though scholars cannot agree where exactly Emmaus was, we’ve all walked that road. It’s that journey between the grief and fear of Good Friday and the joyful surprise of Easter Sunday. It’s the road we walk after one door closes and before the next one opens. The road between a diagnosis and any clear sense of what comes next.

Jesus Goes Before Us (Children's Homily) | April 5, 2026: Easter Sunday

This is what Easter is all about. Knowing that there is no place we can go that Jesus has not already been. Jesus goes ahead of us in life and in death. But there is something else important too: Jesus doesn’t just go ahead of us - he also makes sure we are not alone on the way.

What Becomes of the Dream? | Saturday, April 4, 2026: Easter Vigil

Outside the Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, there is a verse from Genesis engraved on a plaque. It comes from the story of Joseph, and it reads “they said to one another, behold, here cometh the dreamer, let us slay him and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” This is how the world responds to dreamers - to Joseph, Martin, Jesus, and so many others.

Missing the Mark | April 3, 2026: Good Friday

The Greek word used most often for sin in scripture is “hamartia.” It means, “missing the mark.” Which could make it sound as though sin is failing God’s test, not measuring up to the perfection asked of us. But it takes on a different meaning when we know that the word “hamartia” was originally used to describe missing the mark in archery or spear-throwing - moments when a miss does not simply fall short, but strikes something it was never meant to hit.

Embodying Maundy | Thursday April 2, 2026: Maundy Thursday

Before I could really understand why this night mattered - before I had fancy theological words to put around it - I understood that this night was different, because it invited every part of me to participate.

Jesus' Kingship | March 29, 2026: Palm Sunday

In whom do we put our trust? The gospel of Matthew begins with magi journeying to find the newborn king of the Jews, and as we heard today, it ends with the epitaph “King of the Jews” hanging on the cross. From beginning to end, Matthew is asking us: what kind of king will we trust—and to what kind of kingdom will we belong?

Come and See | March 22, 2026

There’s one moment in the gospels when these words are spoken in grief. This time, the words “come and see” are uttered by those who doubt rather than those who believe. Their invitation is to see the place where Lazarus has died. To witness death, despair, and decay. To see the ending of a story - or so we think.

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