This is not a typical sermon. At first it is not a sermon at all. I am going to start well off the subject, and even when it starts to sound like a sermon its purpose will not be fully apparent until the summary at the end. This congregation started without a pastor. We spent […]
1 Corinthians
A Contaminated Christ
In our New Testament reading for today, Paul is talking about the wisdom of God. It’s one of Paul’s homerun passages: the classic paradox of God choosing the weak and despised things of the world as the vehicles of wisdom. Throughout these beginning chapters of 1st Corinthians, he contrasts the wisdom of the world and […]
Paul and power
The first day of my community organizing class the teacher wrote the word “power” on the center of white board. “What are the words that come to mind when you see this?” he asked. We were eager seminaries, ready to take up our crosses, ready to die to ourselves. So we answered predictably: bad, pride, […]