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Jesus is Our COVID Nurse
A sermon on John 10: 11-18 and 1 John 3:16-24 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Mulyadi on Unsplash] The first two sermons that I preached to this congregation were on texts that referenced shepherding imagery. In one Jesus referred to his listeners as “little flock.” In the other, he told a parable about a lost sheep. In both sermons, I basically avoided talking about the shepherding imagery as much as possible, because… it just has no connection t
On Suffering and Witness
A sermon on Luke 24: 36b-48 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash] Jesus has a bit of a reputation for violating expectations: healing on the Sabbath, eating with tax collectors, casting a member of a despised ethnic group as the hero of one of his best-known parables. I saw a clever tweet this week that pointed out how the exhortation to “be like Jesus” might be taken as an encouragement to “drink wine, call people hypocrites,
Easter Sunday: On Grief and Resurrection
A sermon on John 20:1-18. [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash] John’s resurrection story is unique. While the synoptic gospels focus mostly on fear, and power, and awe in their accounts, it is only John’s gospel that dwells on the grief of the scene. Mary approaches the tomb in the dark and alone, a figure of solitude and mourning. When she finds the tomb empty, she runs to the disciples in distress, believing that Jesus’ body
Loving the One Who Will Walk Out On You
A sermon on John 13:1-17, 31b-35 (with discussion of the excluded verses). [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Philippe Mignot on Unsplash] The gospel I just read is the reading assigned for this night in the church calendar, but it is not the story as John wrote it. Or, rather, it is only part of the story. In John’s gospel we get the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and then telling them to do likewise. And we hear Jesus’s new commandment,
