Category: Sermons

Festival of Pentecost

Genesis 11:1–9. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

Sixth Sunday of Easter (B) — Acts 10:44–48

I learned something new this week, and it’s cool enough that I want to share it with you. To make sense of the world, we need to divide our experience up into different categories. Man and woman, old and young, big and small, red and green. The categories we use, we share with other people in our culture, so we can communicate effectively. But it may surprise you that, with even these most basic divisions, not every culture does it the same way.

You can see this most easily with color. In English, we have eleven major color categories: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, Brown, Black, Grey, and White. Japanese doesn’t have a separate category for Green; they just call it a shade of Blue. Russian splits what we call Blue into two categories: Blue and “Glouboy” (light blue), the same way we split Red and Pink. And weirdly, many languages in the world divide colors into just three categories: Black, White, and Red.

Fifth Sunday of Easter (B) — Acts 8:26–40

Sometimes, the readings for Sunday worship have words that are difficult to pronounce. I’m not saying this because of our reader today; she did a great job. But this Sunday, three years ago, I was preaching in a congregation in New Jersey.

The pastor’s chair was WAY too close to the lectern, so when the reader came forward, I had to move to a folding chair behind the organ console, where the congregation couldn’t see me. And thank God for that. The reader began:

Then an angel of the Lord said to Flippy, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza…” So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethuppan Enooch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethuppians, in charge of her entire treasury.

Fourth Sunday of Easter (B) — John 10:11–18

A few years ago, the New England bishop’s office offered leadership training for congregations, and the churches I led joined their second cohort. One month, our homework was simple. Go out into public places and eavesdrop. Sit in a restaurant or bar, and just listen to what people are talking about. I’m a a Starbucks junkie, so it was easy for me to do.

Third Sunday of Easter (B) — Acts 3:12–19

I’m always a little startled that the crowd doesn’t turn on Peter immediately when he preaches to them in today’s reading from Acts. He’s very accusatory and direct. Pilate “decided to release [Jesus], but YOU rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you. And YOU killed the author of life.” If you get a chance to preach in the greatest religious center in the known world, to speak to God’s people and give them an insight into the very heart of faith, you probably shouldn’t start with accusations of murder.

Second Sunday of Easter (B) — John 20:19–31

“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul.” I wish Acts described Christian community today. But it’s mostly an ideal.

The Resurrection of Our Lord (B) — Stories from the Easter Vigil

Fifth Sunday of Lent (B) — Jeremiah 31:31–34

We’re trying to live more like Jesus this Lent, imperfectly but joyfully. God was lovingly powerful with Noah. God was radically generous with Sarah and Abraham. God was relational with Moses. God was imaginative in the desert. And today, we hear my favorite passage from the entire Bible, from the prophet named Jeremiah.

One reason I love it so much is that Jeremiah is so unloved—and for that matter, unloving—and yet this prophecy is so beautiful that it almost doesn’t fit him. Jeremiah is a bringer of bad news, not a fun job in any context. He was called to his unhappy ministry as a young boy, and back then, he protested: I’m just a kid. I can’t do this. But God insisted Jeremiah was born for this job; God knew him while in his mother’s womb. And when Jeremiah spoke, everything would be torn down—and everything would grow up again.

Fourth Sunday of Lent (B) — Numbers 21:4–9

This Lent, we’ve been talking about living more like Jesus. We don’t need to try to be holy, because Jesus’ death and resurrection makes us holy. But we can try to show that in our lives. Through Noah and the flood, God promised to use his power to love. With Sarah and Abraham, God shows radical generosity, giving a long-desired child and much, much more. Last week, we noticed that God is all about relationships. There are lots of rules in the Bible, but it’s not about God telling us to behave; it’s about God teaching us to love.

Today’s story is the kind that makes us think the Old Testament is old, strange, and confusing, and maybe we should stick with Jesus. Especially when we have that beloved passage from John, “God so loved the world.” But I learned long ago that when hard passages come up, if I ignore them, the Holy Spirit gives me trouble.

The Third Sunday in Lent (B) — Exodus 20:1–17
Bethany and Faith Lutheran Churches, Reading, PA

This Lent, I’m preaching about living more like Jesus. We can learn what God is like, and while we’ll never be perfect, we can try to come closer to that ideal. We saw with Noah’s family at the flood, God can destroy, but chooses instead to create, because he loves creation. And last week, God promised a child to Sarah and Abraham, but God couldn’t keep it simple. God’s radical generosity overflows, giving gift after gift.

Today we encounter Israel in the desert. They’re escaping from Egypt and come to Sinai, God’s mountain. God tells Moses that he wants to make the Hebrews his greatest, most treasured possession. They wash and purify themselves to prepare for God’s arrival, and on the third day, God’s presence in smoke and fire appears.