Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Following Jesus

  • The most obvious thing about the gospel this week is not its loudest parts. It is that Andrew and Philip are doing the work of Jesus.

  • Before we leave the call stories behind, we should really deal with what they mean for us. And for the gospel itself.

  • Listen

    In the Transfiguration, we get the big spectacle event, so consuming with visual, power, and misunderstanding, we might fail to hear the voice in the middle of it all saying “listen to him.” Are we listening to Jesus any better than the disciples? Epiphany Last B | Mark 9:2-9 The story doesn’t begin at the…

  • Toward the end of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, he wrote something that sounds a lot like this: I’ve given you something really, really important, maybe the most important thing that I’ve learned: Christ died because we sin. He was buried. Two days later he was brought to life like it says in our Hebrew…

  • 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…

  • 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…