Sept. 3, 2023 Romans 12:9-21 Matthew 16:21-28 “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” In these times of anxiety over the state of Christendom and panic over congregational decline Jesus’ words may come across as especially unhelpful, I would think. I don’t […]
June 4, 2023 Psalm 8 Matthew 28 An article in the Christian Citizen by Curtis Ramsey-Lucas summed up a recent report by Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, with this title: “US Surgeon General Declares Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.”[i] Starting prior to the pandemic and caused in large part by “the accelerated pace of life […]
Feb. 5, 2023 Psalm 112:1-9 Matthew 5:13-20 “Faith is still as it was,” says Carlyle Marney, “- dynamic and paradoxical. It can and it cannot. Every day the believer must be born again and resume their journey. Every old answer is forbidden, until some present urgency makes it new [again.] Faith, says Soren Kierkegaard, […]
Jan. 19, 2023 1 Cor. 1:10-18 Matthew 4:12-23 The word “immediately” in our gospel passage today is a bit intimidating and can have the effect of making us feel that the call to discipleship is for somebody else. “Jesus saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting a net into the sea, and he said […]
January 15, 2023 Isaiah 49:1-7 John 1:29-42 Unlike Matthew and Luke, who begin their gospels with the well-known Christmas stories of angels, and shepherds, and a manger, and wise men, John kicks things off with a remarkable proclamation of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the […]
Nov. 13, 2022 Isaiah 12 Luke 21:5-19 There’s a lot going on in today’s gospel passage. It may not be obvious to you upon reading just this section that Luke is writing in, say, the year 90 about Jesus who was ministering in the year 30, and prophesying about the destruction of the temple […]
Oct. 30, 2022 Luke 9:1-10 Last week Jesus tells a parable “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” A Pharisee was exhibit A in the story and his prayer was contrasted to the very penitential prayer of a tax collector. The parable led us into thinking […]
Oct. 23, 2022 Luke 18:9-14 I’ve been listening to a podcast recommended by a friend of mine called, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” Mars Hill was a mega church in Seattle, which began as a small in-home bible study that quickly exploded into a massive church with multiple campuses, over six thousand […]
Oct. 16,2022 Luke 18:1-18 Group Discussion: What do you think this parable is about? Is it about what Luke says it’s about? Does the passage encourage prayer? What does the passage say about God? Is God the unjust judge? My commentaries all agree that Jesus is employing a rhetorical device here that would […]
Oct. 9, 2022 Luke 17:11-19 What’s this gospel passage about? I’m going to invite you to sit in silence for a moment to think about it. When I first read it for the sake of today’s sermon I was struck by the layers of potential interpretive pages upon which you could write a […]