How many of us can resonate being raised to believe in an angry God? Oh sure, God’s anger and wrath were justified because of our (apparent) sin and God couldn’t be in the presence of sin (despite being all-powerful somehow). How many of us kept asking: “If God really hates us that badly, why does God bother creating us in…
Category: Sermons
The Look of a Disciple
Today’s gospel reading was taken from Matthew 11: 16 “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, 17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a…
‘Dem Bones, ‘Dem Bones, ‘Dem Dry Bones
We speak so many words over ourselves — true, false, and a pasty mixture; necessary, unnecessary, and a quagmire of both. It’s not hard to begin to see why we step into the stereotypes we tell one another. We pronounce so many realities on ourselves — realities that sicken and kill us, take power over others, and distort who we…
Look Up
Where do you look to for help? When real life demands to be lived, a chirpy Psalm might seem a bit shallow to turn to. What’s the use in saying God will keep us from all evil when death and evil clearly still impacts our daily lives? What is the Psalmist trying to say? What hope is there in celebrating…
Women Who Occupy Space Touch
This past week at seminary was fascinating: we were given a text to dig into (pulling out verbs); we then had to place those verbs back into the sentences in which they appeared; but then we were asked to let our imaginations run free a bit and contextualize what those sentences were stoking within us — what fire — and…
Invited, Welcomed, Assured.
Christmas drains me. Trying to secure funding for food hampers, and then distributing those hampers fairly is a heavy job. There are so many stories that come with the people walking through my office doors and, after a while, the sheer volume of need takes its toll. Christmas drains many of us if we’re honest. It’s precisely the time we…
I Can’t Take It Back
Click here — I had to preach this morning. Only this time it was for credit — the first of four between the end of this semester and the end of spring semester. Knowing I had to send this audio file in for actual critical feedback added a new dimension of anxiety, but dem’s da brakes, kid. Dem’s da brakes.…
“Don’t Weep.” – Jesus
It’s always humbling to be able to preach at Lord of Glory. I was hesitant to share the message that I did, knowing it could touch some raw nerves (mine included). But as we moved through it all, it was clear we all needed a balm… to be reminded: “It is well with our souls”. (oh yeah, the recorder kept…
God Doesn’t Approve of You
How’s that for click bait? God Doesn’t Approve of You: I preached this morning at Lord of Glory Lutheran Church. Today it was all about the crazy almost-execution of Jesus when he preaches in his hometown of Nazareth and the good townsfolk, instead of listening to what Jesus is really saying, decide to try and toss him off a cliff. It…