The Voice We Listen To
A sermon on Matthew 3:13-17 for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash We have a lot of exciting things happening in worship today, including the baptism of one of our incoming members, so rather than giving the kind of full exposition on today’s texts that I would normally try to offer in a sermon, today I just want to offer a quick reflection on the meaning of baptism. Because there is one detail from Matthew’s story of Jesus’s
The Choice Between Fear and Joy
A sermon on Matthew 2:1-12 for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by James on Unsplash One of the core concepts in Lutheran teaching is the Theology of the Cross. When I ask what people think this refers to in the New Member’s class, I usually get some version of connecting the cross to the means of salvation, but this theological concept is not about salvation; it’s about revelation. It teaches us that on the cross God offers us the most complete expressi
Expecting to Treasure the Despised
A sermon on Luke 2:1-20 For an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo: The Nativity by Gari Melchers Throughout the season of Advent, our community here at Abiding Peace has been exploring of theme of how God’s revelation in the stories of Jesus and those who prepared the way for him can shape our holy expectations. Jesus’s teaching about the unknowable-ness of what will happen on the final Day of the Lord, reminds us to expect to not be in control. Whether it i
Expecting Vulnerability
A sermon on Matthew 1:18-25. [for an audio recording on this sermon, click here. Photo by M.T ElGassier on Unsplash.] As some of you probably know, because I talk about it a fair amount, I am fascinated by the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a personality typing system that actually dates all the way back to the 4 th and 5 th Century desert fathers and mothers in the mystical-ascetic branch of Christianity. Unlike more modern typing systems, it focuses not so much on a person’
Expecting a Healing Repentance
A sermon on Matthew 3:1-12 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by SOULSANA on Unsplash.] I had a conversation earlier this week with a member of our congregation in which we shared that we had similar feelings about one of the words from today’s gospel. This made me wonder if this is a more widely shared phenomenon in our particular community. If you’re willing, please raise your hand if you generally have a bit of flinch or cringe or otherwise negative
Expecting to Not Be In Control
A sermon on Matthew 24:36-44 and Romans 13:11-14. [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here . Photo by Joan Tran on Unsplash .] It’s a pretty common idea that the college years are, at least in part, a time for self-discovery: a time to figure out who you are and what you want your life to look like. But I’m wondering… has anyone ever heard that same idea of self-discovery is part of the parental journey when we send our kids off? I’m curious because I did not expec
On Scary Stuff and Superpowers
A sermon on Luke 21:5-19 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash.] I have a question for you all. Most of you have probably been asked some version of this before, so hopefully you already know your answers. The question is: If you could have any superpower, what would it be? (See what people say…) So, my answer is usually , that I would want to be a polyglot (able to automatically speak and understand every language in existence
Freedom in the Truth About Ourselves
A sermon on John 8:31-36 and Romans 3:19-28. [For an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Basil James on Unsplash.] I recently ran across a thought-provoking quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s non-fiction series The Gulag Archipelago. The Russian writer draws on his own personal experience as a Gulag prisoner, as well as interviews and research from various sources for an examination of the awful ways that human beings can treat one another, and from that ex
Sometimes Faith is a Bit of a Brawl
"Tangled Blessing" by Lauren Wright Pittman. Non-commercial use permitted. A sermon on luke 18:1-8 and Genesis 32:22-31. [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here .] This Fall I am participating in a continuing education course for clergy that engages the church’s role in addressing the dynamics of “whiteness” as a powerful social construct in American society. In one of this past week’s readings, Pastor Benjamin Boswell shared a story from his time as a pastor in Ch
What Healing Looks Like
A sermon on Luke 17:11-19 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Kyler Trautner on Unsplash.com ] I want to try something a little bit different today. If you key into the details, the gospel scene that we just heard includes a surprising number of references to location or relative proximity. And I think these references are indicating something important about what is happening, but they are easy to slide over as background information when we just re