Did you know that they make glasses that cause the wearer’s vision to be turned upside-down? When you look through the glasses, up is down, left is right and right is left. The idea behind the lesson is to help us understand how our eyes take in what they see...

I have mentioned in a previous sermon that I am participating in a one-year Ignatian retreat. Learning and practicing the various Ignatian spiritual exercises has been a true gift. My favorite practice from Ignatius is the practice of approaching Scripture with one’s imagination. Ignatius believed that God uses everything to...

We live in a world today where the development of the individual is of paramount importance. We value the individual over community. And this focus on the individual is seen all around us. From the day our children are born we are watching them to see what their individual gifts...

As I read our lessons for today in preparation for writing this sermon, I found myself drawn to and intrigued by our reading from Nehemiah. I think there were two reasons for this. First, it has been a long time since I studied this book of the Bible, and I...

Because very few of us regularly sit down and read entire books of the Bible from start to finish in one or just a few readings, we don’t often think about why the author of a particular book put a story where it is in the narrative. For example, Matthew...

The Epiphany story, the story of the Wise Men is a story that most of us have heard countless times. We love the image of the learned men from a faraway land traveling over many miles to bring gifts and their reverence to the newly born Messiah. It is a...

I love our Gospel passage from Luke for this morning for a couple of reasons. First it is the only story we have from the time between Jesus’ birth and infancy and the start of his public ministry. But I mostly like it because it is so reflective of life...

4 BCE. The likely year of Jesus’ birth. Caesar Augustus was emperor, the man previously known as Octavius, and great-nephew of Julius Caesar. Wikipedia says in its introduction to the entry about Caesar Augustus that he was one of the most effective leaders in human history. This interpretation depends upon...

This morning on this first Sunday after Christmas we hear yet another Christmas story. Only this story from John is different from the nativity story we heard from Luke on Christmas Eve or the nativity story in Matthew. We have no angels, shepherds, or virgin births in stables. Instead, we...

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined. . . . For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful...