We don’t often spend a whole lot of time in the book of Proverbs. There are probably a couple of different reasons for that. For one, the short couplets of advice and counsel that make up a significant portion of the book don’t really lend themselves to sermons and preaching. One scholar said they should […]
A few years ago, one of my best friends and her spouse bought a local small business in the Wisconsin town where we used to live. I met Erin, a Lutheran pastor, when the Lutheran colleagues in my town adopted me into their weekly Bible study and sermon preparation group. She lived and served in […]
In the early days of the spiritual movement that we now think of as the early church, the followers of Jesus were pretty much all people who share Jesus’ Jewish faith. The followers of Jesus, those who believe he had been resurrected from the dead for the salvation of the world, didn’t see themselves as […]
What does resurrection look like in the here and now of our daily lives? How is God calling you to embody that resurrection for others? It was winter in Jerusalem. The people had gathered at the temple to celebrate the Festival of the Dedication. On this Sunday in Eastertide, the lectionary sends us back to […]
As a young child I participated in a few plays in our local young children’s theater. Saturday mornings my mom would take me to the Indian Harbor Beach Civic Center across from the library and, with other children, I would take on characters, learn lines, practice blocking and vocalization, and usually run around annoyingly when […]
Proverbs 17:2 says A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones. I know that there is a lot of serious things going on in the world, and maybe some of you came here today with a heavy heart. There are lots of things to be sad and concerned […]
The women had every good reason to go to the garden tomb early that morning on the first day of the week. They had a job to do; They couldn’t have gone any sooner, since it was inappropriate to go on the Sabbath to the place where a dead body was placed. They went as […]
Eight years ago, I stood in front of the community of faith that raised me and was ordained into ministry. It was on a Palm Sunday. And this passage – Luke’s telling of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem – was the Scripture we read together at that ordination service. Ever since then, I’ve had the blessing, […]
Scholar and activist, Loretta J. Ross, starts her 2021 TED Talk with a purposely shocking declaration that she is present at the Monterey, CA TED conference because (and I quote), “Most black women don’t go to Ku Klux Klan rallies on purpose,” which is the work she does that caught the attention of the organization. […]
Pastor, educator, and theologian Rodger Nishioka tells a story about studying the Parable of the Lost Sheep while participating in an ecumenical dialogue with members of the Russian Orthodox Church. He made reference to the parable by that name with his conversation partners and it derailed things for a little bit as the group tried […]
I mentioned when I first preached here at First Presbyterian Church in Allentown, that I’m not one to let an introductory clause go when it kicks off a passage of scripture. That Sunday morning in January the text we read from Isaiah began, “But now thus says the Lord,” begging the question. “What did this […]
Through a lens of mercy There was a conversation this week in an internet forum for church leaders, that was centered around safety training and devices, like automated external defibrillators (or AEDs), and whether or not a church should have one. One commenter was worried that if the church had one, but it’s use was […]
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