Miguel Castilleja Escobar

Lord, this is so weird. Save us from this insanity.  This sermon was preached at San Andrés on August 23, 2026 and is available in English and Spanish (see below). Listen to the sermon in English here and Spanish here . / Este sermón fue predicado en San Andrés el 23 de agosto de 2026 y está disponible en inglés y en español (véase más abajo). Puede escuchar el sermón en inglés aquí y español aquí . In our time, there are many images of Jesus. There are traditional images, like the Christ Child in the manger, or Jesus crucified. There is also the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, often carrying a sheep on his shoulders. And, of course, there are images of him praying, telling parables, and also of him risen from the dead. However, there are also other images of Jesus in our culture that are absurd or dangerous. Recently, there was a bestselling book titled *Jesus Is My CEO*, which imagined Jesus as the head of a large corporation. In various corners of the internet, there are ...

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on August 9, 2026 and is available in English and Spanish (see below). Listen to the sermon in English here and Spanish here . / Este sermón fue predicado en San Andrés el 9 de agosto de 2026 y está disponible en inglés y en español (véase más abajo). Puede escuchar el sermón en inglés aquí  y español aquí . Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus dismissing a large crowd and withdrawing to a mountain to pray. Meanwhile, the disciples get into the boat and decide to cross to the other side. But the journey does not turn out as they expected. When they are already far from the shore, a contrary wind arises, and the boat is battered by the waves. The disciples are afraid. Surely they are thinking about the depth of the water, the force of the waves, and whether any of them could swim to shore to survive. And right in the middle of all this, Jesus comes toward them, walking on the water. At first, the disciples think he is a ghost, and the idea of a gh...

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on June 14, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo).  Recently I read a joke. It went something like this: A evangelical preacher, shouting about Jesus for hours in the park, managed to save everyone. He managed to save them from enjoying their day off. He saved them from their moment of peace and quiet. He saved them from having a conversation with their friends and family. And, in the end, he saved them from having a good impression of Christianity, leaving them to think that Christianity is something annoying and aggravating. I think about this joke every time I find myself trapped on a train with an angry preacher, forcing me to listen to insults and threats of hell directed at people who are not Christians or who are not exactly the kind of Christian they approve of. I am sure they have good intentions, but in my experience these preach...

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on May 24, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo). In 2022, I visited the Big Bend region of Texas. While there, I visited the Blackwell School, a small former school that now functions as a museum. This school, now turned into a museum, tells the story of the segregation of Mexican students in the American Southwest during the Jim Crow era. The museum seeks to tell the Latino experience of that period of segregation. The museum describes how the school treated Latino students in oppressive ways, showing contempt for their culture and for the Spanish language. In fact, the school became known for developing a ritual in which, at the beginning of the school year, the children had to participate in a symbolic burial. The administrators had a doll called “Mr. Spanish.” At the beginning of the year, all the children were gathered together to place ...

Image attribution below This sermon was preached at San Andrés on May 17, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo).  When I was in formation to become a priest, I had to take several classes on liturgy and on this book, the Book of Common Prayer. One day, Professor Sean Wallace, who is a priest in this diocese, pointed out that some of the most moving words in this book appear on page 410, in the section for the burial rite. They do not appear in the liturgy itself, but in the technical notes written for the priest. Normally these words are not read out loud, but they are so profound that he often quotes them during funerals and sometimes even uses them as a sermon. The note is brief and says: “The liturgy for the dead is a paschal liturgy. Its meaning is found in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too shall be raised. Therefore, the liturgy is characteri...

This sermon was preached on Easter morning at San Andrés on April 6, 2026. It was originally written in Spanish, and the Spanish version can be found below the following English translation.  Este sermón fue predicado para el servicio de Pascua en San Andrés Episcopal, 6 de abril de 2026. Fue escrito originalmente en español y luego traducido. La versión español esta abajo el inglés.  Resucitó, resucitó, resucitó Aleluya, aleluya, aleluya Jesús resucitó. He is risen, he is risen, he is risen. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Jesus is risen. This is how one of my favorite hymns begins, proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is not an ancient hymn—in fact, it was written in Spain in the 1980s—and its words are very simple. It has only four verses. But to me, the refrain sounds like what the first disciples might have shouted when they discovered the empty tomb and saw the risen Jesus for the first time. Surely they proclaimed something like this: Resucitó, resucitó, resuc...