Sermon Notes (Page 11)

As we move toward the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we continue our series that focuses on coming home for Christmas. We’ve explored some of the baggage we carry when we return home, and addressed how this can be a fearful experience for some. And last week we talked about that childlike and unadulterated joy that we might lean into as we celebrate Emmanuel—God with us. It is my hope that the joy of Emmanuel is lasting. I say…

As of this writing, we are just a few days from the Third Sunday of Advent, and we are continuing our series that focuses on coming home for Christmas. Our first Sunday, the apocalyptic text helped us to examine the challenges of returning home. Our second Sunday brought a chance to further this examination by understanding that going home can bring anxiety and fear. This week we hold these things in our hearts alongside the reminder that returning home can…

This week we come to the Second Sunday of Advent, finally reading and hearing the familiar text of anticipation for Christmas. Finally we’re getting ready! Finally we’re hearing the voice in the wilderness! So why does the sermon title talk about fear? Perhaps home is a comfortable place for you and therefore unassociated with fear. And perhaps we might acknowledge that it’s not that way for everyone. The Irish rock band U2 includes a lyric in the song “Walk On”…

This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent.  Many of us are expecting to go to church to watch family members, friends, or congregants light an Advent candle and hear a heart-warming message related to events leading to the birth of baby Jesus.  To our surprise, we are given an apocalyptic text with signs from the heavenly bodies and chaos on earth together with dismay and confusion.  Some of us might ask ourselves, what do apocalyptic events and the warning…

This is the conclusion of the Christian year. Our friends in the Jewish tradition end the High Holy Days with Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. It is a time to look back on the previous year and to atone for or “clean up” (kippurim literally means cleansing) our wrongdoings from the past. As we approach the end of our Christian year with Reign of Christ Sunday (sometimes called Christ the King), we might consider where we place Christ…

Our lectionary text this week is the penultimate in our Christian year. It’s interesting that we face an apocalyptic text when we will also do so the first Sunday in Advent. Is this something we should be actively worried about? Is this imminent? Should we be watching the skies for an asteroid or for the opening of the heavens? If we ask these questions, we may be echoing the disciples. When Jesus says the temple will fall, the disciples ask…

Through our recent series on parables, there were several times when Jesus would teach the phrase we now hold familiar: the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The text this Sunday may offer a parallel illustration, and as a clergy person I find it kind of unsettling! The phrase that is translated here as “legal experts” could easily be applied to clergy, and I wonder if our legal professionals in the congregation share the same unease…

This Sunday we conclude our sermon series on the parables of Jesus, guided by the book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy-Jill Levine. To watch or listen to any/all of the services or sermons from this series, visit this page. This parable is likely another familiar story, and in this case the original audience may have guessed the same about each character as we do today. Very often those who are exceedingly wealthy in Jesus’ parables are…

This Sunday we near the end of our sermon series on the parables of Jesus, guided by the book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy-Jill Levine. I’m not sure about you, but the idea of praying continuously wears me out. Honestly, I feel like I have been! I feel especially like I’ve been praying for the end of this pandemic since it started, and it doesn’t look like it’s ended to me. I’ve been praying for our…

This Sunday we continue our sermon series on the parables of Jesus, guided by the book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy-Jill Levine. The focused parable is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.  It must have been frustrating for those workers who worked the whole day in the heat of the sun to receive the same pay as those who only worked for one hour.  It just doesn’t seem fair.  I imagine the other groups…

This Sunday we continue our sermon series on the parables of Jesus, guided by the book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy-Jill Levine. What a moving parable this is! What an opportunity for us to feel good about ourselves and to comfort ourselves… well at least if we identify more with the tax collector (think IRS) rather than the Pharisee (think of the uber-religious person). Does that cause some discomfort? It does for me. I’m a religious…

I remember when I was in middle school, I went to my school’s library and grabbed a few books from the shelves.  Needless to say, they were all books about plants.  I read about how plants use water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to make sugar and oxygen in a process known as photosynthesis.  I was so intrigued by all the diagrams of how everything works and even the chemical reactions themselves.  The process of how plants utilize photosynthesis to create…