There's a cliché that "bad things happen for a reason," and another, "God makes everything work out for good." Of the two, the first is kind of false unless the reason is, "sometimes things suck and …

Today’s gospel is one in which we find some stunning decisions. Some lead to great increase and new responsibility; others lead to a no good very bad terrible day. 

The Gospel isn’t concerned with wha…

Psalm 46 speaks of the desolations God brings to the earth, and it’s our habit to think of floods and disasters. What God desolates is the implements of war — the bow, the spear, the chariots — the M…

Jesus calls us to see God’s kingdom, not as a place of easy living, but of living together in good times and in bad. 

What does this vision inspire in you?

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Note: I read the Gospel and begin the sermon from one of the pews, rather than from the pulpit. I move to the pulpit after a couple minutes. It may be impossible to know this from the audio context.

W…

Immediately preceding this reading, Peter confessed Jesus to be Messiah, and Jesus told him "good job!" Well, essentially. 

This week we see a different side of Peter and a different message from Jesu…

This sermon takes place the week after a challenging congregational meeting. I don't mean "challenging", as in code for "look, the roof is fire and the floor is fire and everything is fire!". I mean …

Gospel: Matthew 9:35-10:8

The Holy Gospel according to Matthew, the ninth chapter.  

Glory to you, O Lord!

35Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming t…

I'm experimenting with some different things, and one of them is moving to manuscript preaching after not using them in about fifteen years, except rarely. This sermon focuses on the idea that our ow…

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr wrote in his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” that his opinion had become that the white moderate was the biggest obstacle to the cause of justice for black and brown…

The Transfiguration is a moment that gives a foretaste of completion — not just of the Law and the Prophets, but of an old covenant as the disciples witness the birth pangs of a new one and wonder wh…

Jesus raises the bar for what it means to love each other and to live in community by saying that words can kill, men can’t wantonly discard their wives, and putting a finer point on our accountabili…

This is a song I wrote for Christmas this year. It’s a rough recording, but love cone down is always a little rough — and even more welcome for its roughness. 

Merry Christmas!

I’ll post the lyrics lat…

So often our belief and understanding of love is limited to our own fragile capacity. 

God’s love is not fragile. 

What difference can this make?

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My plan for Christ the King’s sermon was much different before waking up to news of the tragedy at Club Q. This didn’t happen in a vacuum, but it the predictable result of increasingly bigoted rhetor…

We spend a lot of time looking up, forward, and backward trying to figure out what will happen in a future we aren’t guaranteed from the perspective of events and pasts we can’t change. Jesus reminds…

We often think hope to be a function of love. It is. Yet hope in the midst of loss isn't something that always heals. Sometimes it has a dampening effect on our healing because it feels like a gloss …

Ten lepers were cleansed, one returned to give thanks. 

There’s something about being sick, either chronically or terminally, that robs a person of an identity separate from that illness. In a world w…

“The Pharisees, who we’re lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.”

This was their response to the poorly named  Parable of the Dishonest Manager, and was the reason Jesus told this pa…

When Jesus praises a dishonest manager, it brings about an uncomfortable moment that challenges the idea that Jesus brings morality — or at least a morality we understand. 

This is a chance to reconsi…