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What It Takes To Be Family
a Homily for Proper 5B Text: Mark 3:20-35 Jesus is surrounded. He’s trapped. No way out. This morning’s story opens with a claustrophobic scene. This enormous crowd that has been following Jesus is getting out of hand. He has already feared getting trampled. Now they are closing He and his disciples in. They can’t go…
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In Two Worlds
a Homily for the First Sunday After Pentecost, year B Text: John 3:1-17 click here for the audio seeing with different eyes The most important verse in this morning’s pericope is not John 3:16, but 3:8. Here’s how we get there. As you may have noted, we covered this part of Scripture back in Lent.…
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The Palm Gospel as Unpredictable Danger
a Sermon for Passion Sunday Text: Mark 11:1-11 & Mark 14:1-15:47 must we choose? We’re challenged with two gospels today. They are a natural juxtaposition. One is happy and the other is sad. One declares victory, the other demonstrates earthly defeat. We processed in joyously and we’re likely to walk out depressed. My natural inclination…
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Turning Points
a Sermon for Lent 5B Text: John 12:20-33 Turning Points On Wednesday, we talked about this pericope as a turning point. We know turning points as specific moments in time in which things change. Sometimes it is a decision we make or a decision made for us. Or perhaps it is an event in which…
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The Daywalkers
a Sermon for Lent 4B Text: John 3:14-21 this is loving the world? There are three reactions people have to this part of Scripture: [from least likely to most likely] 3) Not this one again! 2) Oh! That’s what John 3:16 says! 1) Huh? The third chapter of John begins this way: Now there was…
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No Deal.
a Sermon for Lent 3B Text: John 2:13-22 what’s the problem? Think about all of Jesus’s public ministry for a moment. There were some big spectacles like the feeding of the five thousand. There were also public condemnations, particularly of the Jewish leadership. But this story is unique. It is bold and unsettling. It is…
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It’s All About Winning
a Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent, B Text: Mark 8:31-38 This is Winning? “Jesus saves.” A pithy and precise statement if ever there were one. Jesus Saves. He does. But how? From what? It is a statement too simple to be accurate. Jesus is Messiah and Liberator, Conqueror and King. But every image…
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Our Marks, Like Dust
a Sermon for Ash Wednesday, B Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 We’re trained from an early age to hate red ink. Our tests and composition papers were often so riddled with red, contrasting starkly with our own black or blue markings on the white piece of paper. Each of our teachers counted up those red marks—with…