On evening this week, I rewatched Serendipity, one of our favorite movies. At one point, Jeremy Piven’s character encourages John Cusack’s character to be a jackass—to be willing to be foolish for love. Today’s sermon centered around 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, a pasasage in which Paul admonishes the struggling church in a similar fashion: to embrace…
specifically, the time . . . you left a note you drove me home you called to check on me you paid my bill you dropped by to say hi you answered the phone and listened you called me out you came to Dad’s funeral you laughed at my jokes you said you loved me…
We are two weeks into Lent and I am finally getting to my Lenten Journal, my spiritual practice for the season. If you follow my newsletter, you know part of the reason is our little Lizzy! had to have her eyes removed to alleviate the pain caused by the glaucoma that blinded her. We are…
In churches that follow the lectionary cycle, this past Sunday was Transfiguration Sunday, which coincides with the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany before Lent begins. (Did you get all that?) It comes around every year and it is never an easy Sunday to preach for me because, one, it comes around every year…
This week we had a crisis at our house related to Lizzy!, our little dancing extrovert of a Schnoodle who went blind suddenly, or at least so we thought. That story is still unfolding, but in the process of things, she made it into my sermon, which draws from Isaiah 40 and Mark 1. ______________________…
A few years ago, I was speaking at a youth camp and I began by saying, “I basically have one sermon—we are all worthy of love and here to love each other—and I just keep trying to find new ways to say it.” Well, here’s another example. The text was 1 Corinthians 8:1-13. __________________________ For…
I wish someone would write an account of how those who put together the Revised Common Lectionary came to their decisions as to what should be read from week to week, which passages went together, and even what should be left out of the regular three-year cycle. I’m sure the reason no one has done…
I love that every three years the stories of Samuel and Dr. King intersect because they are both stories about listening. Here’s my sermon from this past Sunday. ___________________________ Today is the second Sunday of Epiphany if we mark time by the liturgical calendar. As we know, epiphany is a word that means “awakening,” and…
We had our first winter storm of the year over the weekend, which meant we did not gather for in-person worship at my church this week. Instead, I recorded a “service” and uploaded it to our YouTube page—almost all of that an unseen consequence of the pandemic. The scripture for the week was the account…
The story of Anna and Simeon caught me by surprise as I prepared for my sermon last week, taking me on an interesting journey that I hope is meaningful to you as well. ______________________ When it comes to our Nativity scenes, we know the characters pretty well. At the center, of course, are Mary, Joseph,…