Luke 23:33-43 I was a political science major in college. My reason for choosing that path is a longer story in itself, but, at least in part, what it all came down to was this: I was (and continue to be) fascinated with how people translate belief into action. I cannot today remember how it …
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This Long Wait…
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Luke 21:5-19 It had been a long time. I have been a fan of the Chicago Cubs my whole life — and it had been almost twice that time since the city of Chicago had cause to celebrate as it did this last week. It was sometime in the last few years …
Blessed Are You Who Are Poor…
Luke 6:20-31 It had been a busy morning. I had been out of the office far too much in the last few weeks and so it is that I found myself with the phone pressed to my ear making belated birthday calls. For an hour and a half. I was about an hour and fifteen …
Written On Our Hearts
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Last week-end I traveled with my mother, a couple of my sisters, our aunt, a cousin and some distant cousins to the family cemetery in west-central Wisconsin. It’s a small cemetery with a gravel road off County H leading up a hill to it. When you go to leave you are driving down …
Nothing Left to Lose: The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and a High School Graduate
Luke 7:36-8:3 We hosted our community’s high school baccalaureate at our church this year. In recent years it has been held in the high school auditorium, but for reasons I have not heard they needed another venue this June. So when they called, we were glad to say ‘yes.’ And so it was on Wednesday …
The Nearness of the Kingdom: Jesus Goes, Too
Luke 21:25-36 I spent several hours in the E.R. the other night — this time not because I had been called. No, instead, I was on the other side. I’ll spare you the details, but I was suffering a severe gall bladder attack. After they diagnosed it and addressed my pain, they sent me home …
A King Like No Other
John 18:33-37 I has been ringing through my mind these last days — the cry of the people in 1 Samuel. You remember it. They are in the land which was promised to them. They have been watched over and led by a series of Judges — some of whom did better than others. And …
The Beginning of the Birth Pangs
Mark 13:1-8 The world ended that day. With that phone call. That startling news.That deepening realization. The world ended that day. Or at least it ended as you had known it. I am so deeply aware of this right now for I am in the midst of a stretch of funerals. Some expected. Others not. …
Seeing the Widow
Mark 12:38-44 Truly, my whole life — including the years I have served as a pastor — I have heard the story of the widow in Mark’s Gospel as a story of sacrificial giving. It is a story about generosity. It is an image of one who gave all that she had. This drama and …
All Saints Day: Claiming the Easter Promise
Isaiah 25:6-9John 11:32-44 For as long as I have been a pastor, I have loved All Saints Day. In some years, I have made the time to walk through a local cemetery — returning to those places I have frequented in the months past. Other years, time just gets away from me or the weather …