“A sermon is set in the context of worship. I think of it as a communal conversation, where voices from the life of our community—its struggles, its celebrations, its sorrows—come together with voices from Scripture, from Christian tradition, from the wider church, including its scholars, and from various other secular and sacred readings come together. It is my role as preacher to weave these voices together, including my own, offering up the conversation to the workings of God’s Holy Spirit, and then to make the conversation “public.” So, these sermons are out context. Nonetheless, you are welcome to listen in on the conversation!”
“Leaky Cisterns”-- August 29, 2010Yesterday’s dueling rallies on the mall in Washington DC highlighted the variety of ways of looking at our nation’s history and destiny. Have we lost our way from a golden age when our founders shamelessly and publicly worshiped the Christian God? Or are we called to become a nation where people of different backgrounds, creeds, and faiths all have equal access to a dream,...
[Read More]“What’s Wrong with Healing?”-- August 22, 2010 There are dozens of stories in the gospels of Jesus’ healing people, and we remember these stories by the people’s ailments–the man born blind, or the woman with the hemorrhage, the man with the withered hand, or here, the bent-over woman. The ailment or the deformity identifies the person....
[Read More]“Such a Great Cloud of Witnesses!”--August 15, 2010Ed Mook had one of the more creative notions of heaven that I’ve heard. Considering all the people who have died, he said, he just couldn’t imagine there being room for all of them in one place. So, “you know like those computers,” he told me, “I think God must have some kind of tracking system where all the souls go to different stars in the universe.”...
[Read More]“Hope–In our time?” -- August 8, 2010Depite the best efforts of summer to help us relax, let go, step out of our usual routines, and bask in sunlight and fresh air, it’s hard not to retain at least an edge of anxiety about the state of the world and the times we’re living in....
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