Category: Sermon

  • In the Breaking of the Bread

    We did not have the happy privilege of being at the Empty Tomb, or in the Upper Room when Jesus appeared to the disciples, or among those to whom he appeared following his Resurrection. We are left with second-hand reports. The testimony and witness of others. Given all that, and given all the brokenness of the world, it can be hard to see Christ—or perhaps I should say, to recognize Christ in our midst. And yet, Luke tells us how it is that we—removed by countless generations—can yet know the risen Christ. Christ is made known in the breaking of the bread—in the communion, in fellowship and community, in hospitality and mutual caring, and in feeding the hungry.

    Sermon

  • Turning the World Upside-Down

    I. BEGINNING One of my favorite books as a kid—and still today—is the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Toward the beginning, we encounter a character named Ford Prefect […]

    Sermon

  • The site of the nativity in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Palestine

    God With Us

    Most people encounter God through flesh and blood human beings.  A kindness offered.  A loving embrace.  A hand extended in help.  An arm to shelter and protect.  A mouth that speaks out for justice.  Eyes that see the dignity of each and every human being.  Ears that hear the cries of the needy.  Hearts that are warmed with compassion.  Shoulders that carry one another’s burdens.  It is in these very real flesh-and-blood ways, that God is incarnate with us, that God is encountered through us.

    Sermon

  • Townhouse with tree stump in front yard

    A Shoot from the Stump

    But what we forget is to be surprised by our faith. We forget the power and freedom of God to do not just what we ask for or think God should do but to surprise us beyond our expectations.

    Sermon

  • Christ King of Kings Icon

    A King Like No Other

    There is some embarrassment in the modern church about Christ the King Sunday. It’s viewed as patriarchal, monarchist, and imperialist: all the things that a good modern-day Christian should oppose. And we should. But there’s something missing from that understanding, and that’s that proclaiming Christ as King has always been a subversive act. 

    Sermon

  • Icon of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

    A God of the Living

    He responds to the Sadducees’ ingenuous question with solid legal analysis, theological understanding, and linguistic analysis.  But even more than the deftness with which he deals with the Sadducees’ hypothetical, he teaches us a powerful lesson about God’s nature.

    Sermon

  • An icon of the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

    Public Christians

    Jesus is making it clear: he’d rather have as his followers those who trust in God and know their own imperfect nature than those who assume that their heightened piety places them in a privileged position with God.

    Sermon

  • Tissot: The Flight of the Prisoners

    Making a Home in Exile

    What if the church, were not a place that promised that everything was okay, but that acknowledged that everything was not? What if the church were a place where people could be broken without feeling like they were somehow being terrible Christians because they still feel broken? Even after coming to church and singing hymns about how everything is great.

    Sermon

  • Tissot:

    In the Hands of a Few

    The chasm in the afterlife is erased when we fill in the chasm in life, when we take care of the poor, when we ensure that no one has to worry about where their next meal is coming from, no one has to worry whether they'll be able to afford life-giving treatment.

    Sermon

  • The Parable of the Lost Sheep

    What Matters

    So there is a scene in the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall in which Woody’s character Alvy Singer is responding to charges that he is a downer, that he can’t […]

    Sermon