sermon
Easter feels like it should be an easier Sunday to preach than it is. The magnitude of the day makes it feels like I should have something big to say, but the reality is the story is quite simple and, in its simplicity, profound. So here’s what I have
lenten journal
Palm Sunday is a day full of contradictions to me, particularly in the way we observe it as Jesus’ triumphal entry, because I don’t think triumph was a central word in Jesus’ vocabulary. As I read the story again this year, preparing to preach, I saw something I had
lenten journal
The way the story unfolds in John’s gospel, I think the disciples got increasingly nervous every time Jesus went to Jerusalem because each trip seemed to up the ante, as far as those in power were concerned. As long as he stayed in Galilee, the crowds didn’t matter
lenten journal
Comedian Steve Martin had a routine in his early days where he talked about how much names matter. He said, for instance, you wanted you bank to be named First Amalgamated Federal National Bank so you felt like your money was safe. If it was called Bob’s Bank you
lenten journal
To reference the Mark Knofler song that shows up at the end of this week's sermon, this has been a week when I felt like the bug rather than the windshield. I'm hanging in there, and I found helpful insights in Jesus' parable about the
lenten journal
Barely a week into my Lenten Journal and I am already missing days. One of the reasons is good. A longtime friend came to town for a few days and I spent the evenings talking with him instead of writing. But he's been gone a couple of days
lenten journal
As I say in the opening paragraph of my sermon for the first Sunday in Lent, to preach about the temptations made me want to listen to the Temptations. so, round and around and around we go where the world's headed, nobody knows oh, great googa-looga, can'
sermon
Luke’s account of the Transfiguration intersected life this week, thanks to the Revised Common Lectionary, and I found a strange solace in the story I had not seen before. Sometimes, I suppose, tired eyes see new things. ____________________________ Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s that we are
sermon
Over the past week or so my depression has made a presence of itself—life feels increasingly heavy and deflated. I can point to some circumstances that are contributors, but one of the difficult things about living with depression is it doesn’t require a cause to make itself known.
sermon
In her essay “Soon This Space Will Be Too Small,” Jordan Kisner writes, Even if we are not fated to circle a single story for our whole lives, perhaps we are obliged to follow a single thought all the way until we have finished it. Thoughts can take years. This
sermon
The sky is crystal clear this morning after a day of blinding snow yesterday. The ground is covered with the foot and a half of snow that fell in the midst of the storm. It is beautiful. And it is a reminder that I will get good exercise this afternoon
sermon
As someone who lives with hearing loss, depression, and two titanium knee joints, I found preaching on Paul’s metaphor of the Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:12-31) to be multi-layered. Seeing ourselves as a body—a connected organism of relationships—is more than imagining some sort of cosmic