Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

discipleship

  • Most preachers love the psalms and parables. Me, I’ll take the call stories. The stories where Jesus collects followers like I collected baseball cards and comic books. Intentionally: with respect for big names and the common ones alike. Of course the other stories are sexier. The enduring parables like The Prodigal Son(s), the Good Samaritan, the…

  • A re-imagined sermon for those that have missed church recently After calming the storm, Jesus and the disciples come to shore, bombarded by people looking for healing. It is from here that Jesus takes his disciples aside and asks them who they think he is. Peter’s declaration: “Messiah!” is followed by his fear for Jesus’s…

  • Order, stumbling blocks, and what real Christian community looks like a Homily for  Proper 18 A  |  Text: Matthew 18:15-20   what we mean by sin When Jesus speaks to the disciples in this passage, He speaks of sin against each other. This isn’t so much fault-finding, which we all do so easily, but sin-naming.…

  • Jesus’s turn toward Jerusalem, following where we don’t want to go, and facing our own fears a Homily for Proper 17 A  |  Text: Matthew 16:21-28   Fearing Responsibility We are in the middle of a conversation. We always are. The passages of our lives are always small segments of a much longer story. A common place…

  • I love talking with my Dad about church. He’s a priest. I’m a priest. Both of us are very traditional in many ways; very untraditional in many ways. And the best part is that they don’t always match. I greatly appreciate the way we talk, argue, explore, wrestle with our mutual vocations. Our talk last night…

  • a Homily for Easter 7A Text: John 17:1-11   Being Left Behind It needs to be stated for the record that in our liturgical calendar, Jesus has already ascended. We celebrated the Ascension on Thursday night. So having Jesus talking about going away this morning is kind of weird. Especially since this is Jesus talking…