Sermons

Pentecost is one of those days that can be tricky to handle. What is there to say about Pentecost that hasn’t been said a thousand times before. Is there anything to say about it other than maybe it is the birthday of the church, or tongues of fire are pretty cool, or even back then ...

We all think we want to know the future. We think if we knew the future we could avoid unpleasant experiences, prepare for things better, win lotteries, etc., etc., etc. But do we really want to know the future? Do we really want that much responsibility? For that matter, would knowing the future really help? ...

 I preface all of this by noting we are not talking about diction today. If I would have more creativity at my fingertips when I needed a sermon title I would have probably said something about conversation rather than talking but sometimes we do all we can and subsequently wish we could have done more. St. ...

Two of the most common questions we have at significant points of our lives are “what are we looking for?” and “where are we going?” Most of the time we don’t ask these questions because already know the answers. But there are times when we really need to know. If we need to know because we ...

Sheep and shepherds. If there is a prevailing image in the Bible it might just be this one. There are 218 uses of “sheep” in the NRSV and and another 113 of “shepherd” or “shepherds.” I don’t know how that stacks up against any other significant word in the Bible but that’s a lot. So ...

This Sunday we have another one of those things that is from the Bible but not everyone knows the origin, namely, “Doubting Thomas.” I have known several (many?) people use the phrase who were very surprised to find out it was from the Bible. That doesn’t make them bad people or anything, rather it highlights ...

It is Easter Sunday! The Sunday where we celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord by getting together and worshiping and then eating with family and friends . . . except this year is different. Everything about this year since March is different, why would we think Easter would be spared? We can complain about it ...

So today is Palm / Passion Sunday. I’m drawing a blank on any other day of the year that draws together two such disparate notions. On the one hand we have Jesus entering Jerusalem in triumph, lauded by the crowds with palm branches and cloaks thrown on the road before him. On the other hand ...

We all know what dead means. During these days of the COVID-19 pandemic the notion is probably closer to the surface than usual.It is all too easy to see “dead” as the end because it usually is an end. Even someone who dislikes binaries and false-dichotomies as much as I do admit the binary of ...

This is quite the new normal we are finding ourselves in. Social distancing is changing almost everything we do from personal interaction to buying groceries to how we do church. Church is one of those things we may not think is too important until we are forced to think about what it is like when we ...