I’m often intrigued by the way stories with known endings continue to fascinate us. Our favourite books we reread over and over again; our favourite stories we tell again and again, even when everyone hearing them knows what will happen. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our reading of the Bible: we go to […]
Mark
From a Human Point of View
Christians have always looked for barometers of faith. We want to know: what does a good Christian look like? How can we see if someone is sinning or saved or something else entirely? We see evidence of this debate happening in the early church in Paul’s letters, which often concern the right ways to live […]
Back to the Beginning
One of our practices as a community is to carve out space in our shared worship to share with one another where we’ve sensed the Divine. We wonder where God whispers in words and stories and in the pauses and punctuation and spaces between the lines of scripture. And, maybe some of you in the […]
Driven into the Wilderness
My grandpa had a story that I heard him tell a few times. I can’t confirm all of its details but I can confirm its truth. Sometime when my grandpa was a teenager going to the local Christian high school, during an evangelical chapel service, he was moved to dedicate his life to God and […]
Transfiguration Sunday
Our faith is made up of a series of encounters between humans and God, humans and humans, God and God. Sometimes these encounters have ended in floods or wars or colonial oppression. Other times these encounters mean learning, sharing, and being transformed for the better. And often, the really monumental encounters, the ones whose stories […]
Gathered at the Door
I really appreciate the invitation from you all to be here as a guest preacher. It’s a bit odd to be asked to speak…usually everyone else is doing the talking – rushing by loudly on the street outside or they come and push me open without even thinking. My life is pretty solitary but the benefit […]
Power Belongs to God
God is speaking good news all around us. Which is why listening is so important to the life of faith…listening to God… and listening to those God might be speaking through. Our Psalmist for today is a listener: “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, and steadfast love […]
Beginning as Beloved
Today is the celebration of Christ’s baptism. And yesterday in the church calendar was Epiphany, remembering the three wise men from the east who journeyed to offer gifts and see the Messiah. It’s the time in the church year when we celebrate Jesus bursting onto the scene of the world’s drama – making himself known […]
Wilderness Preparations
There are all sorts of ways that Mark could have begun to tell the story of the good news of Jesus. Each of the four gospels has its own take – Matthew begins the story with a genealogy, Luke with an epic history of unexpected births, and John with a cosmic meditation on the word […]
Waiting and Not Knowing
The Christian year turns on the axis of waiting and hoping in God. On this first Sunday of Advent, we as the church begin again by taking a posture of persistent waiting. In Advent we insist that darkness is not a place of God’s absence but the damp soil where roots of holy hope grow. […]
Mercy triumphs over judgement
We misrecognize. We get people wrong. We interpret the lives of others according to the ideas in our heads. We make evaluations based on our inventions of types of people. We make decisions on what a person is like according to our preconceptions, which are based on piecemeal experiences. We put one person in the […]
Woe to the shepherds
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:1) Jeremiah prophesies God’s condemnation of leaders who forsake their people, shepherds who neglect the flock. The leaders have consolidated their authority with terror, and have driven away the people with abusive power. They manipulate the needs of […]
Fire and flame are your ministers
I’m sitting there, trying to write this sermon, getting some decent thoughts on the page, typing away, me and my computer, along with everyone else and their computers, their books, their lattes—a bright day, a flood of sunshine cooled by a fall breeze. Then a song comes on, one of those songs that dazes you, […]
on divorce
Bring his head on a plate, sighed King Herod. And moments later, John the Baptist was beheaded, to please the whim of a dancing girl, to appease the vengeful heart of Herod’s second wife, who hated John for calling out Herod on his divorce and remarriage to Herodias. It may be that the Pharisees who […]
We, too, dislike it
A painting, titled, The Descent from the Cross, an oil painting on oak paneling, a famous work of fifteenth-century religious art — roughly 7 feet by 8 ½ feet — depicts the drama Jesus foretells in our gospel text.[1] You see the cross, the wood that once suspended Jesus’ body in the air, where his dying […]
Precious and lovely
What is this life for? What’s your life for? [personal story about a friend diagnosed with cancer] So I’ve been thinking about what life is for, this precious life: so brief and so breakable. These bodies, these friendships, these jobs, this family, all of it our lives—we have these fragile lives, and they crumble, never […]
Shake the Dust Off
I don’t have an mp3 player in my car, and frankly, I’m past the stage of putting music on a disc only to have it get all scratched up. So, I have become increasingly comfortable belting out pop songs, even if it draws stares. I am to an extent, beholden to the radio channels, to […]
Teacher, do you not care?
Friday morning I saw a man, probably in his 40s, walking slowly up Morehead Avenue, just around the corner from my house. He was walking with his hands stretched out, out from his sides, making his body into a cross. I stopped and watched him for a while, I watched him walk like that until […]
They were afraid
Easter “They were afraid.” Those are the last words of Mark — the earliest, the oldest, of the four Gospels. Mark ends his story of Jesus with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome at the empty tomb, bewildered. There are alarmed, seized with terror, so they flee in shocked silence. The end. […]
The Human One
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34 When I read these words from Jesus, my mind takes me all the way back to Junior High. I remember the T-shirts my friends would wear at youth group — one shirt would have […]
Muddy
The kids have been singing. For those of you who don’t get here early at 4 PM each week, you should know that you are missing out on some fantastic congregational singing these days. Eric comes each week with his guitar and the kids sit up here and belt out hymns, as well as some […]
Transfiguration and fire
If you know me well enough, you’ve already guessed where I’m headed — you’ve already guessed what verse caught my eye, the part about the fire, of course. “Our God comes and does not keep silence, before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him” (Psalm 50:3). Obviously I’m going to […]
Heavens torn apart
“And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.” That’s the scene at the Jordan River, with John the Baptist and Jesus. There they are, at a baptism, and the heavens are torn apart. This is apocalyptic language. […]