Year A: Day to Pentecost
Several years ago, a team of six people from our church traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to help rebuild houses and lives torn apart by the tornadoes that left behind a trail of destruction there. Even though it had been a year since the tornadoes wreaked havoc there, and a lot of clean-up and rebuilding had […]
Read MoreYear A: Seventh Sunday of Easter
The manifesto of the Cloud Appreciation Society states that “We believe that clouds are unjustly maligned.” I bet you didn’t even know there was such an organization as the Cloud Appreciation Society. I didn’t either until I started preparing for this sermon. Someone has counted that the word “cloud” occurs 107 times in the Bible […]
Read More¥ear A – Sixth Sunday of Easter
How many times has someone said to you or you have said to someone else, “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it”? I cannot tell you how often and how recently I have heard that line myself. What we say and how we say it speak volumes about who we are. Let’s […]
Read MoreYear A – Fifth Sunday of Easter
Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world. And there is no way to prepare for it. For other jobs, we receive training and education. But for this job, most of us figure it out on the fly, as we go. Oh, some of us might try to prepare by reading […]
Read MoreYear A – Fourth Sunday of Easter
There are some words that just don’t seem to go together, words you don’t expect to hear in the same sentence. Word pairs like: intelligent pastor, compassionate accountant, truthful politician, honest lawyer, responsible journalist, civil war, academic sorority, accurate estimate, actual re-enactment. You get the picture. Some words just don’t seem to go together. In […]
Read MoreYear C: The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Do you ever wish that God would just speak to us audibly and dramatically as God seems to have spoken to some of the characters in the Bible? “Go here, do this, do not do that, make this choice, go in that direction . . .” Life would be so much easier if God would […]
Read MoreYear C - Second Sunday after the Epiphany
There are a lot of reasons why people give up on God. They prayed, and nothing seemed to happen. They were dealt a crushing blow. They loved and were hurt. They tried to live a good life, but it just seemed to do no good. Someone they loved died. They lost their health, their home, […]
Read MoreYear C - First Sunday after the Epiphany – Baptism of the Lord
One of the most memorable experiences I had in seminary took place in a Christian Education class. The professor asked us to imagine that we were writing a book about our lives. What title would you give to the book? It’s a good question. What title would you give to the story of your life […]
Read MoreSecond Sunday after Christmas Day
A four-year-old girl was having trouble going to sleep. So, she called to her mother who was trying to go to sleep across the hall, “Mom, I need some apple juice.” “Okay honey,” the mom replied, “but after I bring you this juice, you need to go to sleep.” The mom made her way into […]
Read MoreYear A – Ascension of the Lord / Seventh Sunday after Easter
Since the title of the sermon is “The Definition of a Witness,” I thought I would begin by giving you the definition of a witness – – just to show you that I am on point, or at least I am starting off on point. If you were to look up the word “witness” in […]
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