One of the most difficult parts of writing a sermon is that you have to be ready to change it due to current events, even if you’ve already gotten it written for the week. Bear with me as this is a less-polished version than the sermon I had originally written for this week. In today’s…
The opening of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is a powerful passage on the life of the church. God in this passage is active, empowering, encouraging, and persistent in those who have turned their lives to God. God’s activity is woven through these verses of the epistle like the slow and steady changing of the…
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil 4:4). This is Paul’s call to faith communities this Sunday. Our anxious culture needs God’s good news in this text. Rejoicing in the Lord – even in a childlike manner – is the hallmark of our Christian life. Joy is the command to all…
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of vineyards and evil people, which is what we’ve been focused on for what seems like weeks now! One of the things that doesn’t age well with the Bible is how the references to things that were commonplace in society were used as metaphors. Maybe 2000…
Change and chance: words to describe the rather ordinary, unpromising circumstances leading to the events in two of today’s readings, from Genesis and the Gospel of John. Jacob is fleeing from a family disputeHe is tired, physically and emotionally. Apart from his family, he has no shelter. He happens upon a spot with a stone…
Today’s Gospel story is one of the more detailed of Jesus’ parables, and we hear yet another expression of what the Kingdom of heaven is like. To our minds, accustomed to wages that fit the labor, the vineyard owner’s payment practices seem totally unfair. The story itself raises internal questions which are never addressed: Were…
Sometimes, O God, Your Word is hard for us. Sometimes, O God, we don’t want to hear You. Sometimes, O God, we’d rather sing our nice hymns, pray our comforting prayers, and turn away from what You require. Send Your Holy Spirit, that we may turn to You, in the Word read and proclaimed, that…
“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” Since 1989, the ‘Season of Creation’, ‘Creation Time’, or ‘Creationtide’ has grown to be a lively global and ecumenical movement in Christian churches, dedicating the Sundays of September and the first in October (closest to St Francis’ Day, 4th October) to worship,…
[Jesus] said to [his disciples], “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!” Today’s gospel reading offers us one of the most profound questions in all of scripture, asked by Jesus to his…
“Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” ……………… We have to wonder how long the silence is after the Canaanite woman pleads for Jesus to heal her daughter. Then, the disciples complain that she annoys them. And then Jesus insults her with his declaration that the mission…
It is among the masses in Galilee that Jesus starts his healing and teaching ministry. Jesus’ popularity as a man who can heal whatever ails a person spreads beyond the Galilean borders. His newly acquired celebrity attracted enormous crowds; the crowds consisted of the infirm and their caregivers and friends, as well as curious, fascinated,…
James Liggett Several years ago, one of the Public Opinion companies, it was probably Gallup, did a survey of Americans and asked a very interesting question. They asked several thousand people whether they had ever had what they would call “a religious experience,” a personal experience of whatever sort, that brought them somehow into the…
