Prodigal God
The story centers on the impatience of the younger of the two sons. He wants his inheritance before the death of his father. I’ll read verse 12: “He said to…
Book of the Bible: Luke
Wait
Psalm 27:14, “Wait for God; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for God.” When a bible passage repeats a phrase, that’s usually a signal to pay attention.…
Wild Patience
The devil quotes scripture. This book that we read from every week can be twisted. Its words can be made to serve evil purposes. That’s not a surprise to anyone,…
Sending
Numbers 6:24-26 (VT #826), Jeremiah 29:4-11 (VT #783), Isaiah 52:7 (VT #781), Luke 4:16-19, 21 (VT #292), Matthew 28:16, 18-20 (VT #451) This is the last sermon in this series…
Sharing
Colossians 3:15-17 (VT #818), 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (VT #785), Luke 24:13-35 (VT #470) We share. That’s what we do here. That’s what church is about for us. Not just here,…
Pondered in her heart
Last year when I spent a week helping out at the migrant shelter in Tijuana, I met a woman who was very pregnant, within weeks of her due date. She…
Incarnation
The incarnation. This season is a celebration of the incarnation, of God who became flesh in Jesus Christ. These stories about the advent of Jesus, the stories about his birth…
What should we do?
“What then should we do?” (Luke 3:10). That’s what the crowds say. That’s their response to John the Baptist, when he stands along the banks of the river Jordan, calling…
You hold me, I hold you
I’ve mentioned before that I used to teach classes in prisons, mostly at one in Durham and another in Raleigh, both of them state prisons. But I also would drive…
Son of Man, Sophia of God
No lyric has ever stopped a tank. No sermon has ever ended patriarchy, especially a sermon delivered by a man. But here we are, trying again, with some words about a few Scriptures—an invitation to live into new possibilities, a call for change. Because we are in need of reformation, we are in church always in need of reformation, to be renewed and restored. To be healed from the sexism that has plagued the church, that plagues our society, that infects our lives, our relationships.