To believe John 20:19-31 by Isaac S. Villegas April 7, 2013 In a documentary called The Undocumented, Marcos Hernandez tries to track down his father, or at least the body of his father, who was last seen in the Arizonan desert, with other migrants, a group of them, walking for days in the 120-degree summer […]
Come and see
Come and See John 20:1-18 by Catherine Thiel Lee Easter: March 31, 2013 Jesus Christ is risen! (Everyone hopefully responds, “He is risen indeed!”) Nice. And I have just proved that you already know this story, the one I have been asked to stand up here and tell you. You already know this story. But […]
Footwashing
Holy Thursday John 13:1-17, 31b-35 by Isaac S. Villegas March 28, 2013 Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday go together. Both turn our eyes, they turn our lives, to the basics, the fundamentals of earthly life: dirt and water. On Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent, we are marked by ashes, by dirt, and we […]
The God of Israel, Strange and Familiar
God of Israel, strange and familiar Isaiah 43:16-21 by Matt Elia March 17, 2013 I Our Psalm for today reads: “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.” What might it mean for us to be like those who dream? In a short story published in 1911, W. […]
Prodigal son
Prodigal Son Luke 15:1-3, 11-23 by Isaac S. Villegas March 10, 2013 On Monday mornings, a few years ago, there was a worship service in a clearing in the brush and trees for the people who lived nearby, in the woods. We worshiped on an abandoned concrete slab, a stones throw from an onramp for […]
Fox and the hen
Fox and the hen Luke 13:31-35 by Melissa Florer-Bixler February 24, 2013 While I’ve heard the adage “fox in a henhouse” it came to life when I visited the home of one of my daughter’s classmates who lives on the outskirts of Chapel Hill. The mother of the family was showing me their sprawling acreage […]
Temptations
Temptations Luke 4:1-13 by Isaac Villegas Feb 17, 2013 In the wilderness, the devil asks Jesus a question, a question in the form of three temptations. The question is: Who are you, and who will you be? This is a question for us, during Lent, during this time in the church calendar to reflect on […]
It’s all about you
It’s all about you by Isaac Villegas Feb 13, 2013 Ash Wednesday “It’s not about you.” That’s the first sentence of a popular Christian book published a decade ago: The Purpose-Driven Life, a New York Times bestseller. “It’s not about you.” That’s wrong, and Lent shows us why, because during Lent we remember that it […]
Transfiguration, Freedom, and Valentinus
Transfiguration, Freedom, and Valentinus 2 Cor 3:12-4:2, Lk 9:28-36 by Isaac Villegas Feb 10, 2013 On the mountain, as he is being transfigured by God’s glory, Jesus stands in the company of the great prophets of freedom — he stands with Moses, the one who led Israel out of Egyptian slavery; and he stands with […]
Guest preacher
Guest Preacher Luke 4:21-30 Ben D. Feb 3, 2013 Holy Spirit, open our eyes that we may recognize Jesus in the words we hear. Direct our steps that we may approach Jesus as that solid rock which makes a true foundation, and not as the rock of scandal that would cause us to stumble. Amen. […]
Our wedding feast
Our Wedding Feast John 2:1-11 by Meghan Florian January 20, 2013 Three days ago Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by John. Three days ago John saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove. This man Jesus is different, somehow. He walks by, and people say, “Look, here is the lamb of God!” […]
baptism of Jesus
Psalm 29, Isaiah 43, Luke 3 by Jordan Farrell January 13, 2013 Water is awesome. In fact, I struggle to think of anything that is more versatile and awe-inspiring than water. It can lead to some pretty wonderful things. For those of you who have ever listened to the music of a river, chewed on […]
The horrified God
The Horrified God Zeph 3:14-20; Isa 12:2-6; Phil 4:4-7; Lk 3:7-18 by Isaac Villegas Dec 16, 2012 “Be silent before the Lord God.” That’s the verse that stuck out to me as I read Zephaniah this week. It comes early in the book, at the beginning: chapter 1, verse 7. “Be silent before the Lord.” […]
Finding salvation in Advent
Finding salvation in Advent by Thomas Lehman December 9, 2012 Last Sunday, as the season of Advent began, Isaac spoke about life in prison, omens of an unbearable future, people fainting from terror, Jesus as a mashup artist (whatever that is), looming chaos, and catastrophe; all this when you might have come on the first […]
Apocalyptic climate
An Apocalyptic Climate Luke 21:25-36 by Isaac S. Villegas Dec 2, 2012 I’m reading a quirky book. It’s about a lot of things, but, for me, as I read, it feels like an invitation to pay attention to beauty, the graceful loveliness found in unexpected places. A man named Ken Lamberton wrote the book while […]
Hear
Hear Mk 12:28-34; Deut6: 4-9 by Catherine Lee November 4, 2012 “This utterance of Israel is not a dictator. It will not impose its will. It can only issue its summons and its invitation and await a decision that is always to be made yet again.” ~ Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 725 […]
Sacrifice
Sacrifice Heb 7:23-28, Mk 10:46-52 by Isaac S. Villegas Oct 28, 2012 They said he was a strange man. “Chris was something else; the weirdest one of all of us, Don shared at the microphone yesterday at the memorial service. Christopher Ross Henne, born in 1952, died last month, in his sleep. He just couldn’t […]
A hundredfold blessing
A hundredfold blessing Mark 10:17-31 by Isaac S. Villegas Oct 14, 2012 As long as you perform your deeds for the sake of the kingdom of heaven or God or your eternal salvation, in other words for an external reason, things are not truly well with you. ~ Meister Eckhart, 14th century[i] Is it worth […]
Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh
Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh Genesis 2:18-24 by Meghan Florian Oct 7, 2012 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” In Genesis 2 we find ourselves in the garden, surrounded by lush green growing things, […]
Spirits and struggles
Spirits and struggles Numbers 11:24-29, Mark 9:38-42 by Isaac Villegas Sept 30, 2012 Here’s how I like to tell my story of church wandering, of moving from one kind of church to another, of switching Christian traditions several times over the past 30 years. As a kid, our family moved from the Roman Catholic Church […]
Begging like dogs
Begging like dogs Mark 7:24-27 Isaac S. Villegas Sept 9, 2012 I don’t like borrowing tools. I don’t like asking for help. I don’t like bothering anyone. I’d rather figure out how to do it on my own. Well, two weeks ago, in the middle of the afternoon, while I was home alone, I found […]
Hunger
Hunger John 6:51-61 by Meghan Florian August 19, 2012 I hesitated to preach on the gospel text this week, since it is quite similar to last week’s text, but in the end it seems to me that there’s a good reason the lectionary keeps us here for awhile. So, we shall see what else we […]
Dylan, Jesus, and misunderstanding
“Bob Dylan, Jesus, and misunderstanding” John 6, Exodus 16 by Isaac S. Villegas Aug 5, 2012 Sometimes, when I’m reading the Gospel stories about Jesus, I feel like I’m in the strange world of one of Bob Dylan’s songs, like “Talkin’ World War III Blues from his 1963 album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, or stuck […]
prayers and burdens
“We thank our Lord that our burdens are staggered,” Kate Roberts prayed a few weeks ago, “so that we might have the strength to carry another’s weight.” The church is a people of staggered burdens, as Kate put it, a community where those who bear much pain do not have more than they can bear, […]