What is the good news of Pentecost? I have no doubt that today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles will take center stage at most pulpits on today’s celebration of Pentecost, but I’d like to diverge from the easy path. Today’s gospel reading from John challenges us to think about how it is that…
Sorrow. Disbelief. Shock. Anger. Confusion. Deep, inconsolable mourning. And a sense of being on repeat. Our nation was once again rocked by an act of evil that everyone dreads to hear – the senseless killing of lives by a soul killing defenseless children and teachers in a rampage of rage. Why? How can such violence…
Over the past week, I think that many of you may have learned of a new, or rarely used term: food desert. It’s used to describe “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.” This doesn’t mean that food is scarce – it means that healthy, unprepared, fresh…
I’m going to warn you now that I will probably ask more questions in this sermon than you’re used to. Questions that cut right to the root of our faith. Questions that may make you uncomfortable. Questions that we need to ask. Questions that each of us needs to answer for ourselves. “For God so…
God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction. Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I’m not afraid when you walk…
Some weeks, the readings we hear in church are SO full of sermon possibilities, that it’s hard to pick a particular track; others, I struggle to say something new and different. The Third Sunday of Easter is a mother lode for me… I wouldn’t mind preaching on this week’s readings again next week, in fact!…
“Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.…” (Rev 1:4) Welcome to Low Sunday, the nickname given to the Sunday after Easter. I’m not entirely sure if we nickname it Low Sunday because it’s the first Sunday after all the pomp and circumstance of Easter Sunday…
Today, we heard the Lucan version of the Resurrection story, but I wanted to also read to you today the Marcan version from chapter 16: When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the…
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the old game called Telephone, where you and a bunch of friends stand in a straight line, and then a person at one end whispers a message to the person next to them. That person whispers it to the next person, over and over until the message reaches the…
Today’s scriptural references are from the Common English Bible. Let me start today’s sermon by telling a quick joke: Knock-knock. [Who’s there?] Boo. [Boo who?] Don’t cry… It’s only a joke! Most of you stopped listening to the joke after I said “Boo” because you knew how it was going to end. (Badly, I might…
Do you hear them? The voices around Jesus. One December night in 1982 in Westland, Michigan, a man and his wife were driving home. Suddenly a fourteen-pound bowling ball crashed through the windshield, killing the man. Why? That question is almost irrepressible, isn’t it? When we face freak accidents or tragic illnesses, the question, “Why?”…
As you know, I took a long vacation to Hawai’i over the past few weeks. As I sat there, enjoying the sights and sounds that are so foreign to us here in Western New York, I began to think about the senses that God has blessed us with. It is only fitting that today’s Psalm…
