Sermons

-Parables — meant to tease. Lots of possible interpretations-Chapter full of them. What part doesn’t make sense?-Jesus provides an interpretation but may not be the only interpretation-Usual use of interpretation focuses on us. What kind of soil am I?-But that makes sense and is easily explained-Read parable again-What doesn’t make sense? Gardeners and farmers, what’s […]

Following Jesus, proclaiming that the kingdom of of heaven has come near, living how he taught to live, and enacting God’s unlimited love… is going to cause problems in interpersonal relationships. When Jesus talks about people close to us that doesn’t just mean families. It means literal neighbors, too.

On the surface, todays Gospel reading is straight forward. Jesus sends the disciples out on mission, tells them to whom they should go, gives them travelling instructions and warns them of the cranky people they will encounter. AAA and Rick Steve’s Travel Guides.When Joseph asked me to preach this Sunday, I read the passage from

The passages we hear today aren’t about us and how we’re supposed to act. The passages today are about God: God’s deep love for humanity, God’s desire for us to be in right relationship, and God’s willingness to short-circuit certain rules because the healthy don’t need a physician.

Three Persons, One God: a mystical dance of union and unity, a mystical dance of wholeness and division between the creator of all things who broke into time to redeem all things, and who sent themself to draw us into their work of reconciliation… Joined to God in baptism, joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection as we are born by water and the Spirit, we are made part of the community that professes Jesus the Christ crucified and resurrected.

The breath of God, fire, God within and around us. Through our readings today, on this day of Pentecost, we get an intoxicating feeling of being surrounded and held up by the mysterious power and presence of God through the Holy Spirit. Every year on this day, as we read together from the Acts of

Come behold the wondrous mystery/Slain by death the God of life/But no grave could e’er restrain Him/Praise the Lord; He is alive!/What a foretaste of deliverance/How unwavering our hope/Christ in power resurrected/As we will be when he comes.