Category Archives: Sermons

The stage on which God’s action takes place in the first eleven chapters of Genesis is the whole world. In the beginning all of creation is declared good but wickedness and violence raise their ugly heads and God determines to … Continue reading →

We remain resolved to reject extreme ideologies that perversely misuse religion to justify indefensible attacks on innocent people and to embrace persons of all religions, including our Muslim neighbors, and to welcome refugees seeking safety.   Before 9/11 the average … Continue reading →

A Slave Named Profitable Tradition has it that the Apostle Paul wrote this personal letter to Philemon, a slave holder and leader the church in Colossae in the year 61. At the time when Paul was living under house arrest … Continue reading →

  These stories are sign posts that have immediate, obvious relevance, and provide a deep well of possibility of resonance, if not for comprehension now, then for later, and for generations to come. They testify to a continuous presence of … Continue reading →

The God who shows up does not lead us out of our fellowship, but more deeply into it .. with others and with a Jesus who is committed with his very journey to the seemingly strange thing God deems as … Continue reading →

We have bought too heavily into the model of diagnosing moral failure and its consequences as disease rather than holding out healthy life choices and focusing on life affirming behavior. Maybe we have forgotten that human beings are moral agents … Continue reading →

The question of why a woman would choose to abort a pregnancy is similar to why a person feels it necessary to arm themselves.   I’ve been a supporter of getting non-sporting weapons off the streets for decades. I still … Continue reading →

In this middle section of Matthew 6 Jesus speaks a few lines about fasting. Starting with the 16th verse we read: “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to … Continue reading →

This whole idea of our need to defend the faith or more precisely defending our preferred doctrinal orthodoxy strikes me as a lack of trust in God…. Last Sunday, on Facebook, a Boston Terrier informed me that for dogs all … Continue reading →

The last phrase of the Lord’s prayer, as most of us repeat it, doesn’t exist– at least in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew.  It’s a doxology that has been added and similar to the way we traditionally use debts or … Continue reading →