Safe Church Sunday sermon
In our worship service on Sunday, September 14 - through song, prayer, and word - we made space to commit ourselves to being a church that practices beloved community, following Jesus who welcomed children and...
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Part of God’s Story
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Teacher, do you not care?
~ Fritz Eichenberg, "The Black Crucifixion" (1962) 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...