Mark 6:1-13 I woke up early on Friday morning. I had checked email and poked around on Facebook. While awake, it had been a long and full week, and I did not yet feel like moving much, so I scrolled across the screen, taking in the other options on my IPad. I had forgotten that …
On Charleston and the Gaping Wound of Racism and the Cloak of Jesus
Mark 5:21-43 Along with many of you, I have found myself devastated in these last days at the news of the murders of the nine who had gathered for prayer and study last Wednesday night at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. As Presiding Bishop Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America …
Power over a Storm
Mark 4:35-41 I have been a pastor nearly half my life now and for the first time in these last weeks I have found myself in conversation about safety plans in the event of extreme weather. Of course, this has been prompted by a recent tornado whose path missed us by mere miles as well as …
The Reign of God: Something New Under the Sun!
Mark 4:26-34 For the first time, I planted a garden this spring. Oh, I grew up watching my dad tend a huge plot in our back yard. During late summer and fall we always enjoyed the fruits of his labor. Tomatoes and zucchini and peppers and potatoes were ours in abundance to eat and give …
“So We Do Not Lose Heart”
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 “So we do not lose heart.” It is easy to lose heart, of course. The world and our experience of living within it, gives us all sorts of causes and reasons for discouragement. We experience it in our lives, in our communities, large and small, and in our congregations — this temptation …
Nicodemus and You and Me and a Group of High School Seniors: God’s Time
Ecclesiastes 3:1John 3:1-17 Next Sunday night I will be one of two preachers for our High School Baccalaureate. By then it will already have been a very long week-end. Saturday morning I will officiate at the funeral of a woman who was just my age. It was my deep privilege to walk alongside her …
These Dry Bones
Ezekiel 37:1-14 I am fortunate, I know, to know so very little of the scene which Ezekiel encountered in the vision before us now. One can only imagine the devastation which must have preceded what resulted in a valley full of dry bones. No, indeed, the closest I can come to comprehending such as this …
Not Belonging
John 17:6-19 Jesus speaks to us today of our ‘not belonging’ to this world. My guess is that most any one of us who made it to the other side of middle school has some idea of what he is talking about here. At least I know I do. Indeed, I imagine that many of …
“I Have Called You Friends…”
John 15:9-17 I got thinking about friends in these last days. Certainly because Jesus speaks of his disciples as ‘friends’ in this week’s Gospel. Maybe because last week I got to spend precious time with a couple of friends who live so far from where I do. But also because of a five minute conversation …
The Vine and the Branches and My Ash Tree
John 15:1-8 I had to have my ash tree taken down last summer. It’s just a guess, of course, but it likely stood on that spot for more than a century. This means it would have pre-dated my house and all the other houses up and down my street. It would have taken root and …