Sermons
Sermons preached in a context, but written for people of all sorts and conditions.
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Let the good stuff out
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6 min read
a Homily for Proper 17B Text: Mark 7:1-23 Those Dirty Hands You may have noticed that I read the whole gospel pericope, not the shortened version in the lectionary. The primary reason is because the full story makes more sense than the edited version. The second reason is because what was removed is the part…
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Faith Before Understanding
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5 min read
a Homily for Proper 16B Text: John 6:56-69 What is this? Jesus has brought the people here through a swirling storm of teachings about faith, understanding, and love. As they arrive to the safety of the synagogue, he takes all of that teaching and he mixes in their likely confusion about literal and metaphorical…
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Take a Bite Out of Jesus
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6 min read
a Homily for Proper 15B Text: John 6:51-58 The first thing we notice about the gospel pericope we read this morning is that Jesus is still talking about eating. It seems as if he is always talking about food, doesn’t it? The manna, the bread, the bread of life. I am the bread of life.…
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Grumble if you must, but then trust
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7 min read
a Homily for Proper 14B Text: John 6:35, 41-51 In our gospel story, Jesus turns his attention from the crowd to the Jewish leadership. He has been talking about bread—the bread from heaven. He makes reference to the story told in Exodus. It goes a little like this. The Hebrew people, living in Egypt for…
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Why do you follow?
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5 min read
a Homily for Proper 13B Text: John 6:24-35 Why do you follow Jesus? For Christians, this should be an easy enough question. But it isn’t for most of us. Or at least there’s trouble in the answering. Why do you follow Jesus? For many of us, we had a moment in which our belief in…
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About the Bread
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7 min read
a Homily for Proper 12B Text: John 6:1-21 Focus on the Feeding With the Feeding of the Five Thousand, we get one of the most recognizable stories of Jesus in the Bible. To many of us, this is quintessential Jesus. He feeds people. He performs a miracle. He instructs the disciples. He transforms how people…