The Intersection of Cosmic and Mundane
John 1:1-18 My sister is an excellent preacher. Although we are different in many ways, we also both tend towards procrastination and dislike housework. We joke that if one of us is cleaning, it is a sure sign that we have a sermon to write. So it will not surprise you that at my allotted sermon preparation time yesterday I found myself cleaning a car mat which had suffered from a particularly sticky holiday food event. As I worked, I…
Making Room for Baby
Photo by Filip Mroz on unsplash.com Many of you know Sarah. She’s expecting to become a grandmother any time now. Last week, the baby was in the wrong position so the doctors decided to do a C section on Monday but when the family arrived at the hospital they discovered that baby had moved into the normal position. But a day or two later baby moved back and so they went back to the hospital for a C section but…
God is Persistent but never Pushy
I always have a little bit of trouble knowing what to say in my sermons at Christmas. After all, you all know this story already. And most of you have heard as many Christmas sermons as there were angels in the heavenly host! So this year, I enrolled in a Christmas Preaching Bootcamp. It seemed a good idea. I figured I would get some new ideas and y’all might get a better sermon. But there was one thing I didn’t…
Lessons and Carols
Well, it’s not exactly a sermon but the lessons and carols speak for themselves.
Good News Hunting
When I was a kid I loved the puzzles where you have to see how many umbrellas or chipmunks or words you can find hidden in the picture. I was reminded of this by this morning’s gospel which ends with the words, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” It left me wondering where exactly the good news is hiding in this account of John’s preaching. It seems that he was mainly talking about…
Make Space for God
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on unsplash.com If you’re about the same age as me, this gospel reading with its quotation from Isaiah immediately brings to mind the beginning of Godspell with its haunting “Prepare the Way of the Lord.” Yet I wonder why the Lord needs the way prepared. Yesterday, members of the altar guild cleaned all our sacred pots and pans in preparation for Christmas. We do this two or three times a year – before the two big…
Raise your Head
Luke 21:25-36 There are two quite different ways of looking at this week’s Gospel. One is that terrible things are going to happen and we should be prepared less we be trapped; and the second is that actually terrible things happening means that redemption and God’s reign are very near and we should be hopefully expectant. Looking at this textually, the ambiguity seems to come from the fact that we are reading Luke’s gospel. Both Luke and Matthew took Mark’s…
The Reign of Christ
Revelation 1:4b-8 John 18:33-37 I am glad to be home after a rapid visit to my family in the UK. Of course, one person I did not see was my brother Richard who died quite a while back. Every Christmas, Richard faithfully sent out a Christmas letter with the normal kind of information about his family’s activities. But Richard was not an optimist. Every year he told us that things were so bad that the end of the world was…
Hannah pours out her soul, by Berkeley Johnson
Photo by Steven Su on Unsplash 1 Samuel 1:4-20 Mark 13:1-8 Good morning! It is wonderful to be here with you, once again, and to have the opportunity to share the Good News with you, especially on a day where a woman has a central role in fulfilling God’s plan. When Caro+ asked me to preach, she told me this is a different service where we only have two readings, and a slightly longer time for the sermon (lucky you).…