Text: Matthew 1:18-25 Sometime during my mid-20s, a wise person said to me that love is more about choices than it is about feelings. It was a lesson that stuck with me, and it’s a piece of wisdom that I have shared in nearly every wedding sermon I’ve given in my career. When a couple stands before you, passionate about each other,…

Text: Isaiah 40:1-11 This passage marks the transition between what many biblical scholars call “First Isaiah” and “Second Isaiah.” The first half of the book, it is widely believed, relates the words of the prophet of the Babylonian exile, while the second half of the book is comprised of the words of a prophet, or prophets, following in the tradition of the…

Sermon for October 18, 2020 Text: Galatians 6:7-10 For me, one of the saddest consequences of the pandemic and the forced isolation that has been imposed upon us is the expectation of self-sufficiency. In being asked to “shelter in place,” we have had to figure out how to go it all on our own. We are holed up in little bunkers, some…

Sermon for September 27, 2020 Text: Hebrews 10:23-25 When we were meeting in-person, gathering to “do church,” I interpreted the membership promise to “support the church with one’s presence” to mean showing up for worship and small group participation. The pandemic shelter in place order has caused me to re-think what “showing up” means. How do we show up for one another…

Message for September 6, 2020 Text: Psalm 32 Eleven years ago, I went through a brief period of depression that alarmed me enough to seek medical treatment. I was especially alert to this because my mother struggled with depression, and took her life at the age of 40, and this episode came upon me around the 25th anniversary of her death, at…

Message for August 30, 2020 Texts: Luke 10:25-37 and Jeremiah 31:31-34 As I lay on the acupuncturist’s table one day this week, literally “leaning into discomfort,” my mind cast back to an experience I had in college, and compared my budding racial awareness during those years to my observations of that town when I revisited it for homecoming a couple years ago…

Message for August 16, 2020 Text: Luke 14:7-24 Although the Parable of the Great Banquet is included in both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, usually it’s Matthew’s version that gets read in churches that follow the lectionary schedule of scripture readings for worship. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ telling of the parable is set against the backdrop of Holy Week; it is…

Message for August 9, 2020 Text: Mark 10:17-31 On scanning this passage, I did what I’ve at times encouraged you to do, and I took notice of the repetitions. I was so struck by one such instance that I double-checked my Greek New Testament just to be sure it was there in the original text. There is, indeed, a verb that is…

Text: Luke 4:14-30 Last week, I shared a term that I picked up from a blog by Pastor Erna Kim Hackett: “Disney Princess theology.” This phenomenon refers to our tendency to read scripture as if it’s directed toward us as “the good guys;” we identify with the faithful disciples in the stories, or with the ones who are healed or freed from…

Message for July 26, 2020 Text: Isaiah 52:7-10 As I mentioned a minute ago, the sentiment that opens today’s text from Isaiah, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the person who brings a message of peace” is the equivalent of the now-old expression, “You are a sight for sore eyes!”  I never really gave this expression much thought before,…