I begin tonight, with words not my own, to speak about the most wondrous gift given to us all on this most holy night. I invite you to hear these words from Martin Luther’s sermon on the afternoon of Christmas Day, 1530, as he preaches about the angel’s message: To you is born this day, […]
As we come to the end of this Advent season, and as we face the coming of the Winter Solstice tomorrow, we find ourselves in darkness – as our opening dialogue states it: stumbling as those lost in the night. We’ve talked a lot this Advent about various forms of darkness, real and metaphorical, […]
The beginning of Isaiah 61 probably sounds familiar, as we hear it read by Jesus in the synagogue at the start of his ministry in Luke’s Gospel – a reading we’ll get to hear in Lectionary Year 3 next year. It’s what some have called Jesus’ manifesto. The spirit of the Lord God is […]
I had a hard time getting this week’s sermon done. That happens sometimes. It’s like a form of writer’s block hits me every so often. I just don’t know how to start sometimes, and when I try to just start writing and see what happens, I look back several pages in and it’s just clearly […]
Welcome to Advent. Welcome to the waiting. Welcome to the struggle of faith against fear. Welcome to the struggle of light against darkness. Welcome to the call of God to live into a hidden reality based on God’s promises. Welcome to the waiting. Advent is a season of waiting. And so, right from jump, we […]
Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison? It’s the question that stands at the heart of this week’s Gospel reading from Matthew 25. When was it that we attended to your needs, or failed to attend to your needs, Lord? And […]
We just read a very difficult Gospel text – one that’s, frankly, hard to reconcile with my understanding of God’s nature. This parable stands with others we’ve read recently from Matthew’s Gospel, especially with the one about the guy without the proper wedding garment (Remember him from a couple weeks ago?). He, too, ended up […]
Our reading from Amos 5 today, like most of the book of Amos, is full of judgment. But it turns in verse 24 to a call to deeper commitment. In studying this text with my colleagues this week it occurred to us (thanks, Pastor Elizabeth Neese) that in our worship life – in the rituals […]
Thin places – I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that term, but it’s a phrase that comes from Celtic Christian spirituality, which has gained quite a bit in popularity with the emergence of the Iona community, on the Scottish Isle of Iona, and the general increase in interest in what might be called “alternative […]
If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Who doesn’t want to be free? Free from sin? Free from guilt? Free from pain? Free from all those things that bind us up, that stop us from experiencing the freedom Christ intends for all people? Or to say it in more […]