Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

love

  • In our readings from Acts and John, we get two very different stories of the apostles responding to the risen Christ. But they both actually point to the same teaching. Luke and John reveal a false choiceEaster 2B  | Acts 4:32-35, John 20:19-31 In Holy Week, we traced the last week of Jesus with the…

  • I had this neighbor a few years ago. He made it really clear where he stands about guns. And about what he thinks about everything I value. Years ago, we moved to a small town in Michigan. A bit under 6,000 people and up against the big water. Water to the east, other communities to…

  • In overturning the tables in the temple and reimagining Sabbath law, Jesus invites us into a new relationship to our work. Not as adherents and citizens, but as artists and co-creators. Jesus invites us to be artists collaborating in a global masterpiece Lent 3B  | John 2:13-22 This church may have a lot of doors…

  • It seems weird to mix Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. One’s the annual celebration of love and the other the annual reminder of our own mortality. But the two belong together more than we think. In 2018 we are fortunate to have St. Valentine’s Day land on Ash Wednesday. And the juxtaposition of the two…

  • The Baptism of Jesus is often treated like the necessary means of getting Jesus into the right space with the cosmos: that if he doesn’t get dunked, he’s stuck. Or else we treat it like the perfunctory reason behind our religious rite. But baptism is way more than that. It’s the start of something awesome.…

  • The prologue to John (John 1:1-18) is the Christmas gospel. It reveals how shallow our view of Christmas is. That deep down, we must realize our love is more than practical and theological ideas about God and the nature of Jesus. It’s in every aspect of creation and our very humanity. The Incarnation of Jesus…