Sermons

Today is the last Sunday of the year! I love the liturgical year and how it is different than the calendar year, it reminds me that there is so much that is more important than dates. The year ends with a bang, with Christ the King Sunday, or Reign of Christ Sunday depending on which you ...

There is something in all of us that wants to know when things are going to happen. We want to know for all sorts of reasons ranging from a desire to plan better to simple curiosity and everything in between. With this in mind it shouldn’t surprise us too much that there are lots of ...

This is the last Sunday where there are two completely different (at least that was the intention) sermons in the one post. The Knox Presbyterian sermon is a meditation on how much we are different than the first century “teachers of the law” and Pharisees; those groups of hyper-religious folks that Jesus had so many run-ins ...

This Sunday has two sermons again but both of them take quite a bit of direction from the Reformation Sunday designation. When I was looking into why this Sunday is Reformation Sunday I was reminded that Martin Luther posted his 95 questions on the church door on October 31 so Reformation Sunday is the last ...

Today was the first time in a very long time, maybe ever (?), that I have preached two intentionally different sermons on the same day. More than once, I have found that the two sermons are quite different in the end but not in the intention but today was different. I am preaching specifically in regard ...

Thinking is something we all do all the time. No matter how many times we are asked the rhetorical question, “What were you thinking about? Anything at all?” the answer is never that we were literally not thinking. This week’s sermons are about how important it is to think about the right things. St. Paul ...

I realize that beginning with that sort of question is just about as provocative as asking if self-esteem is always good.* I hasten to add that I am convinced that confidence is almost always good. Well, you may be asking, if it is only “almost always” good then when isn’t it good? Tempting as it ...

We all want to be like someone. Sometimes it is a sports figure. Sometimes it is a parent or other relative. Sometimes it is a fictional character we encounter in a movie or a book. This isn’t wrong, it is just human nature. This week’s sermons are about being like Jesus. Not in any divine sort ...

I felt the need to divert from the Lectionary to complete the “two part” sermon I alluded to last week. Both Sundays stand alone but this Sunday flows from last Sunday pretty well. I was very surprised to see that the Lectionary didn’t continue in Romans so . . . well I just did anyway. The ...

“Who do we live to?” I know this is an odd question, it is even ungrammatical which is a bit of a departure for me, but the answer to the question is the title of today’s sermons – “We do NOT live to ourselves.” This comes from St. Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, “We ...