Prayer: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” In an earlier sermon I opened with a few comments about the Lectionary, and do so again. Today it lists three scripture passages that are hard to ignore. Who can brush aside […]
Tom Lehman
The Path Ahead
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 […]
The PG-13 Life of Sarah & Abe
Prayer: Lord, we seek to understand the heroes of scripture, even when we are separated from them by 4000 years and enormous cultural differences. Lead us to the eternal truth contained in the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael. This note before I start: Much will be said about Abraham and Sarah. Their names […]
Who needs an epiphany?
[This sermon was prepared for January 8, 2017, but icy streets kept us from worshiping that day. It was given on January 15.] When Neftali gave the sermon about two months ago he was careful to make sure that the words of the Bible passage could be understood by the children in the mid-years of […]
Mary, our theologian
“Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Her heart. We glimpse Mary’s heart in our Bible passage today. A glimmer of her inner life, of what she thinks about, of what will flash through her thoughts over the years, the thirty-three years, as her child grows from infant in […]
Let mutual love continue
Opening prayer: “Eternal Spirit, Draw us together in this hour and help us to expand the circle of those whom we reach in love.” The author of the book of Hebrews is unknown, so much so that some scholars do not even have anybody to suggest. However, it is nonetheless carefully and deeply argued. Consider […]
The Context of Confession
Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. My first brush with Ash Wednesday came ages ago when I was at Purdue University. One day a friend of mine appeared with a very visible gray mark on his forehead, and I called it to his attention, thinking it should be removed. He informed […]
Are you on defense or offense?
Opening prayer. Lord, our God, grant us enough wisdom to lead lives worthy of your calling, and enough humility to realize that your perfect way is higher than we can attain. Amen. In the Revised Common Lectionary this is New Testament metaphor Sunday; it’s not stated, but it is abundantly illustrated. I counted at least […]
On healing
In our Old Testament reading for today the people of Israel, after their spectacularexodus from Egypt, are slowly moving across the desert and dying from snake bites. God tells Moses what to do:Numbers 21:9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; andwhenever a serpent bit someone, that person would […]