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The Scandal of Lent
Every year I struggle with Lent. I struggle with what we are really called to do. Certain things are different, and yet we don’t really live all that differently. We fast or we take on new things or we mark our worship differently. But something doesn’t ring true about it for me. As I wrote…
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Bible app doesn’t get the season
A real push notification on my phone right now: As the Easter season begins, start a Reading Plan today Two gut responses: The “Bible” app, YouVersion doesn’t actually know that Lent begins today, not Easter? Who doesn’t get that Lent isn’t Easter? The Advent/Christmas problem is invading Lent! The world mischaracterizes Advent as the Christmas…
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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 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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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…
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To Bless or Not To Bless
That is the question I have for Monday. For the liturgical snobs out there, I know that it is Lent and we aren’t encouraged by Michno to bless in Lent, but to recite a “prayer over the people,” as was the most ancient custom of what would become the blessing much later. It is a…
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Lent is about trust
In the first Sunday of Lent, we read about the Temptation of Jesus. But is Jesus really tempted? Or is there something else going on? Who really needs to worry about temptation? And what is Lent really about? If you were at St. Paul’s on Sunday, you may already know, but the rest of us…