Category: Sermons

Sermons preached in a context, but written for people of all sorts and conditions.

  • The Servant God

    The Servant God

    A mother-in-law’s gratitude at odds with the public spectacle. Jesus leaves town, perhaps because of his notoriety, but perhaps also because the people are more interested in him, in the wonders that he has done, in the power that he possesses. And not in what GOD is calling him to actually do. Not in what…

  • The New Authority

    The New Authority

    Jesus shows us why our ideas of power are only half right a Homily for Epiphany 4B  |  Text: Mark 1:21-28   Authority Today’s story about Jesus leaving the seashore and heading to the synagogue to teach is obviously about authority. It says so. Twice. But it gets a little complicated. Yes, it is about authority…

  • Called to Transformation

    Called to Transformation

    How Jesus calls us to act now to do something audacious, in spite of ourselves, precisely because GOD is audacious a Homily for Epiphany 3B  |  Text: Mark 1:14-20 Calling I love these call stories: these stories of Jesus calling the disciples to follow him. I think they’re pure gold for us. They may not be…

  • What Do We See?

    What Do We See?

      Seeing is not just Believing, Seeing is Really Seeing Epiphany 2B   |  John 1:43-51 Come and See Andrew is a follower of John the Baptist. He’s the one involved. He’s the worker. The devoted one. After John baptizes Jesus, he tells Andrew about it, about him. Who Jesus really is. Andrew gets his…

  • Love and Sacrifice

    Love and Sacrifice

    a Homily for Easter 6B Text: John 15:9-17 Last week’s Gospel pericope ended with verses 7 and 8 which read: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and…

  • Repent and Become

    Repent and Become

    And here, at the font, is where we begin. We get the chance to repent and return. We get the chance to realign and to be given a new opportunity. To shake that Etch-a-Sketch we call a life and try again. We get to go through baptism once, but we can keep getting wet. We…

  • Revealed By the Light

    Revealed By the Light

    This is our season of truth. Our season of light. It is casting candles in the dark corners we refuse to visit. It is making new plans and making changes we’ve been avoiding. It is ringing in the new year with an examined courage rather than willful ignorance.

  • The Miracle

    The Miracle

    The Nativity and the Christmas Truce Christmas  |  Luke 2:1-20 What Is and Isn’t There Have you ever noticed that a word is missing from the account of Jesus’s birth? There is no word telling exactly where Jesus is born. The word stable doesn’t appear, though most of us put him there in our minds.…