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When GOD doesn’t provide
If you say the phrase “God will provide” in the Downs house, you’ll likely get your mouth taped shut. Not by me, but by my wife: she’s the pragmatist. “God doesn’t pay the electric bill!” she’ll retort. Since I was let go, we’ve been facing this very issue; trusting in GOD while trying to understand…
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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…
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No Retaliation
My sermon for Proper 7A (yesterday) is up here. It deals with our culture of retaliation and Jesus’s encouragement to see another alternative; an alternative that we have trouble seeing because we are so committed to violence and retaliation. I thought it was a little spicy. What do you think?
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Destroying Dogma
My sermon for Epiphany 5A is up here. The topic is Jesus’s preaching on freedom, law, and Kingdom-life. It followed the previous week’s discussion of the Beatitudes, called “Blessed“. This week continues the Sermon on the Mount and will be posted next week. Look for a teaser soon.
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Blessed (Beatitudes)
Epiphany 4A | Matthew 5:1-12 [Note: the original sermon was preached from sparse notes. What follows is a fleshing out of those notes as best as I can.] GOD of Hope and Wonder, you gave us Jesus as Messiah and Lord. Open our hearts to love as he loves, our imaginations to dream as he…
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Piety and generosity
I have just posted a couple of sermons from the last month on my sermon page. The first is on piety and proximity in Jesus’s actions with the “sinners” called “Risking Cooties“. The second is on the mustard seed and slave parable called “Gotta Have Faith“.
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Looking for the Law
I have posted yesterday’s sermon on my sermon blog here. This was a big day for me. It was the first full-on no-notes sermon at the principle worship service. And I didn’t mess up (which is pretty big, too)! What I posted on the sermon page is a recreation from my notes, not a transcription. …
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The Fool
“You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.” This week’s gospel in the RCL is Luke 12:13-21. It deals with Jesus preaching to this crowd of thousands and he is describing how radical the Kingdom of GOD looks compared with the world we live in. It is a pretty profound message…