Alle Episoden
I Give Up
16.04.2026, 12:00
In this episode, Marcus Halley responds to a graduating student’s spiritual anxiety by asserting that surrender is the door to the spiritual life. Marcus shares that we all have a common experience of deep hunger: for meaning, connection, and love. He then contrasts trying to control God through formulas and practices with learning to surrender to God by cultivating practices of silence and listening. Drawing on Howard Thurman’s “A Seed Upon the Wind,” Marcus describes surrender as a long inner struggle that leads to a new life oriented toward God’s purposes. He suggests practices like community, contemplative prayer, spiritual direction, and gratitude as ways of embodying spiritual surrender.
Leslie Odom, Jr.'s "I Surrender": https://youtu.be/V26iETMaj8E?si=NlH99PdhdAlq5hw4
00:00 Introduction
01:55 How do I develop a spiritual life?
05:58 Howard Thurman’s “Seed Upon The Wind”
11:22 Tilling the Soil of Spiritual Possibility
12:11 Gratitude and Final Blessings
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marcushalley.substack.com
Easter is more than Brunch
09.04.2026, 16:00
In this episode of Everyday Liturgist, Marcus Halley shares an Easter Sunday sermon from Trinity College Chapel. Marcus frames human beings as God’s image-bearers called into partnership with God against the rebellious forces bent toward injustice and death. He argues that Jesus’ resurrection is not a return to normal life but the first sign of God’s new creation where domination ends and justice reigns. Christians respond faithfully by daily choosing to follow Christ in acts of love, humility, generosity, and justice, resisting systems that dehumanize.
00:00 Introduction
01:24 Sermon: Easter and the Christian Life
14:34 Reflection
20:59 Gratitude Practice and Final Blessing
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marcushalley.substack.com
The Resurrection and the Life
25.03.2026, 12:00
In this episode, Marcus Halley shares a sermon he gave on March 22, 2026 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Oxford, Connecticut. Using John’s story of the Raising of Lazarus, he explores how to face real grief while holding the church’s theology of life, echoing the Book of Common Prayer: “life is changed, not ended.” He distinguishes Lazarus’s temporary return to mortal life from Jesus’ resurrection, which ends death’s dominion, and urges Christians to live as if life leads through death by choosing love, prayer, generosity, and hope over prejudice, cynicism, and greed.
00:00 Introduction
03:28 Sermon: I am the Resurrection and the Life
14:52 Reflection
20:24 Closing Gratitude and Final Thoughts
Dean Andrew McGowan's Substack, "Andrew's Version": https://abmcg.substack.com/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marcushalley.substack.com
Walking in the Darkness
16.03.2026, 12:00
Walking in the Darkness
Marcus Halley shares a Lent sermon from St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church (New Haven) on Jesus as “the light of the world” in John’s Gospel. He links the woman at the well (Photini) and the man born blind to the idea that true sight is spiritual insight. He argues that darkness is not the absence of God, drawing on Barbara Brown Taylor’s contrast between unrealistic “full solar” spirituality and a “lunar” spirituality that accepts seasons of doubt, fear, and uncertainty while trusting God remains present. Against war, political violence, and other heavy recent news, Halley says the light that shines in darkness helps us name suffering, perceive God at work, and join that work through prayer, and acts of solidarity and compassion, remembering we are never alone.
00:00 Introduction
01:26 Sermon: Walking in the Darkness
14:33 Reflection
18:31 Closing Gratitude and Final Blessing
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marcushalley.substack.com
Where Are the Young People? with Allen Wakabayashi
25.02.2026, 17:00
Where Are the Young People? with Allen Wakabayashi
In this episode, Marcus introduces an extended Everyday Liturgist conversation with Allen Wakabayashi, chaplain at the Episcopal Church at Princeton, prompted by Allen’s Living Church article “Where Are the Young People?” Both reflect on what students teach them with their diverse backgrounds, deep questions, a hunger for meaning, and the need for a non-performative community where it’s safe to be broken, ask hard questions, and mature beyond Sunday-school faith. The episode closes with Allen’s gratitude for continuing to “walk with Jesus” amid chaos and frustration, and Marcus’s reflection that faith must be allowed to evolve through loss, death, and resurrection, asking whether the church can create a container for transformation, reengage tradition with integrity, and live a vibrant faith that changes people from the inside out.
00:00 Introduction
05:08 Conversation with Allen Wakabayashi
45:40 Take-aways, Learnings, and Challenges
50:17 Closing Gratitude and Blessing
"Where are the young people?" in the Living Church: https://livingchurch.org/commentary/where-are-the-young-people/
Meet Fr. Allen, Chaplain at the Episcopal Church at Princeton: https://www.ecpton.org/clergy-staff
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marcushalley.substack.com