On this Second Sunday after the Epiphany, the lectionary drops us into the Gospel of John with a phrase that is easy to miss: “the next day.” The next day after what? Well, the next day after John has been questioned by the religious authorities, interrogated, really, about who he is and what he’s doing […]
You received yesterday the sermon I had intended to preach but did not. It was already scheduled to go out and did. What follows is what I actually preached with some editions and edits (after all I wrote it 20 minutes before the 8 am service began and have since had time to refine and […]
This morning, we find ourselves standing once again on the banks of the Jordan River, listening to a familiar story from the opening chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus comes from Galilee to John, wades into the water, and asks to be baptized. John hesitates. “I need to be baptized by you,” he says, […]
Two days before the festival of Epiphany and the end of the Christmas Season, the lights are still up, the music still familiar. And yet the Gospel appointed for today refuses to let us stay in that safe, sentimental place. Matthew gives us a Christmas story that is not cozy. It is dangerous. It is […]
On this first Sunday after Christmas, the church gives us a story that feels a little strange. There are no angels here. No shepherds. No manger. No one is kneeling beside a crib. No one is hurrying through the night with good news. There is no stable, no star, no newborn wrapped in cloth. Instead, […]
There is something wonderfully strange about beginning the church year with this reading. We turn the page to Advent expecting candles, quiet hymns, and the slow approach of hope. Instead, Jesus starts us off with a warning that feels like a jolt. No one knows the day or the hour, he says. Not the angels. […]
We arrive today at the end of the long green season of Pentecost. For months we have walked with Jesus as he teaches, heals, welcomes, and challenges. We have followed him across Galilee, into the homes of friends and strangers, through arguments with religious leaders, and into moments of astonishing grace. Next week we turn […]
Imagine standing before the Temple—the pride of Jerusalem, the symbol of God’s presence, the center of worship, the beating heart of a people’s identity. It was dazzling. The marble gleamed in the sun. The air shimmered with incense and song. Pilgrims came from every corner of the empire to see it and say, “Surely, God […]
In today’s Gospel reading, the Sadducees come to Jesus with a trick question. They don’t believe in the resurrection, and they want to make the idea sound ridiculous. So, they pose a scenario drawn from the law of levirate marriage: a woman is married to seven brothers, one after another, each dying childless. “In the […]
I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true, who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew. And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green: they were all of them saints of God […]