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Rethink the Gospel for Advent 3B – Who are you?
Advent 3B | John 1:6-8,19-28 Two weeks in a row, the preacher gets to deal with John the Baptizer. And some of the elements sound repetitive. The quote from Isaiah, the preaching and preparing of the way, for instance. It is a subtle switch from Mark to John. And yet, while we might have the…
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A Better Lord’s Prayer
Is it time to change the Lord’s Prayer? “Do not let me fall into temptation because it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell,” – Pope Francis I For many Christians, the ubiquity of the Lord’s Prayer is everything. Because of that, I…
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Rethink the Gospel for Advent 2B- The Long Beginning
Advent 2B | Mark 1:1-8 We dive into Advent with an apocalypse, which is the last thing we expect to receive at this moment. And then follow it up with John the Baptizer, screaming about repentance like a wild man and dunking people in the river. This is about the least “Christmas” the church can…
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Rethink the Gospel for Advent 1B – The Same Old Same Old
Mining the Same Territory After spending the last month preaching about keeping awake and preparing for the coming of Jesus, to have Advent 1 start with the exact same message is strangely consistent. For those of us who use the Revised Common Lectionary, we get a gospel for the first Sunday in Year B which…
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We must start with love
We hear all these other things about who we are and what we’re supposed to be, but there is one place we all must start: Love beyond ourselves. Of all things, we must start with love. It is our hermeneutic, our fundamental. Our North Star and compass. Love is the start and our predictor. Most…
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The Greatest Commandment
When asked “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus’s famous response isn’t just about loving God and neighbor. It says our love depends on it. When Jesus is asked to name the greatest commandment, he doesn’t skip a beat. Love God. But how he responds to this question is truly remarkable. There’s nothing remarkable in the…
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We Are One
31. We could with common voice, spirit, and heart, embody the love embodied in Jesus. All of the ways we experience God paint a portrait of the loving character of God. We see God in creation. We read about God in both Hebrew and Greek Scripture: what we call the Bible. And we meet God…
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In the Mercy of God
30. And then all people of faith could put themselves and one another in the mercy of God. Part of me doesn’t care about your individual faith at all. That’s the byproduct of individualism, isn’t it? I care only about my faith and I don’t have to give a hoot about yours. This idea falls apart,…