August 8, 2021 - The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious and loving God, may only your Truth be spoken and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            I bet that right now, you can think of certain smells and immediately be transported somewhere else. More than any other sense, smell can take over our brain and conjure up memories and associations. Just a whiff of perfume or cologne can remind us of grandparents who died decades ago. For me, the smell of diesel fuel takes me to the Dominican Republic and certain foods are almost like a time machine that bring me to previous meals. I’m sure you all have some of those smell-based associations.

August 1, 2021 - The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Gracious and loving God, may only your Truth be spoken and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is Christianity? Certainly,  that's a big question and one that I will not  be able to fully answer in  this sermon. But that question really is an  important one, as another way of asking the same thing is to ask "What is this all about? Why are we gathered here? Why do we invest time, money, and energy into the Church? So what is Christianity?

July 25, 2021 - The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious and loving God, may only your Truth be spoken and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            When we need help, what do we usually do? Well, I suppose it depends on the kind of help that we need. But, generally, we turn to a friend or family member. Need help moving something? You call a friend with a truck and a strong back. Other times, we need an expert, and so we go to someone like a mechanic, surgeon, or seamstress to have them work on the issue in exchange for money. But still, some problems can’t be solved even by an expert, and so we look to elected officials and politicians to address issues like climate change, foreign trade agreements, or getting a road repaved. But there are still yet other issues that no political system or party can address – the question of how we overcome the divisions that are tearing apart our society, the angst we can feel about the meaning of our lives, the fear we have of our impending deaths, the guilt we carry for the mistakes we have made, the uncertainty we have in society and in the Church about how we emerge from this pandemic. Where do we turn to for help with those sorts of issues?

July 18, 2021 - The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious and loving God, may only your Truth be spoken and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            A few weeks ago, in preaching on the subject of generosity and giving, I recounted the story of a pastor who, instead of saying “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” when the collection came forward, said, “God, this is what we think of you.” And while that may be true in some sense, the grace of God is that regardless of what we think of God, God shows us unrelenting grace, mercy, and love. Well, today the topic isn’t giving or money, but rather relationships and reconciliation. And that statement might also be a helpful one for this topic; when it comes to how we treat God’s children, that is, one another, we are saying something like “God, this is what we think of you.”

July 11, 2021 - The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious and loving God, may only your Truth be spoken and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Paying off the mortgage, making sure the kids can go to college without debt, giving to charity, and no longer driving a minivan – those are the first things I’d do if I won the lottery. I’m not sure that I’ve ever bought a lottery ticket in my life, and yet, when I see that billboard on 85 between exits 75 and 76 with the estimated winnings, I engage in “lottery fantasy.” And now that there’s a million-dollar lottery for getting a COVID vaccine, all of us who have done the right thing and had our vaccine are now enticed to think about how we’d spend that million.

July 4, 2021 - The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious and loving God, may only your Truth be spoken and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong.” Many of us learned that song as children, but little did we know that it’s not some simple Sunday School song – it’s actually the sort of deep theological truth that St. Paul is writing about in the passage we heard from 2 Corinthians. Yes, “Jesus loves me” is an important message and you’ve heard me preach on that idea many times. Today, I want to focus on the other part of the song – “they are weak, but he is strong.”

June 27, 2021 - The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious and loving God, may only your truth be spoken and only your truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            You all remember that, before the pandemic, back when we were passing the offertory plate, when it was brought to the altar as a symbol of our thanksgiving, we would either say “All things come of thee, O Lord; and of thine own have we given thee” or sing “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” Both are fitting words to accompany this liturgical action. I recently heard of a minister though who said something different; something, a bit more truthful and provocative. When the offering would reach the front of the assembly, the offering plates would be raised with the minister saying, “God, this is what we think of you.”