(Recording excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr’s, “I Have A Dream” speech) It’s always humbling to follow the best, which means it’s really hard for an ordinary preacher to follow Martin Luther King, Jr., from the pulpit. Many of you recognize the speech. What you just heard was an excerpt from the Rev. Dr. King’s 1963 I Have A Dream speech. Martin Luther King had a Godly dream: following the teachings of Jesus Christ, a dream of equality, justice, and love. Tomorrow our nation honors the … [Read more...]
Sermons Archive
Joy!
This past week I was reading a book by Jerome Berryman, a man who lost his wife to cancer two years ago. In the book’s introduction the author writes of their great love for one another and the great happiness they experienced in their relationship together. Berryman makes a statement in this book that has stayed with me all week. He asks: Do you know what you get when you mix lots of happiness with lots of sadness? You get joy! I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Here’s a man who has lost … [Read more...]
First Things First!
Last night some of us celebrated...while many of us slept! But whether or not we were awake, at the stroke of midnight we entered a new year. Today is the first day of the first week in the first month of a new year. And, although last Sunday was Christmas day the church calendar tells us that today is the first Sunday in the Christmas season. And, of course, this is the first Sunday of the New Year. It’s a good day to speak of first things! This day on the church calendar is called the Name … [Read more...]
Eat, Drink, and be…Mary!
Tonight we gather to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christmas proclaims to the world that God is not far off. God who created each of us became one of us, and continues to be among us. A time of celebration is a time of feasting. Our feasting proclaims that spiritual things are not all invisible. Food and drink, flesh and blood— as the book of Genesis reminds us, “God created it all; and it was good.” Across our land and across our globe people come together on this day, eating and drinking. … [Read more...]
Benjamin’s Story
(This message continues an Advent series of stories that re-tell stories of our faith in the belief that God invites us to use our imaginations to hear and see in new ways God’s transforming power among us.) Stories engage our senses and captivate our thoughts. Come and listen to a story about a time when people were waiting for something and expecting someone who would change everything. My name is Benjamin. I have no claim to fame. But the story I tell is about people I knew who became … [Read more...]
The Wilderness
Stories engage our senses and captivate our thoughts. Come and listen to a story about a time when people were waiting for something and expecting someone who would change everything. The journey was going to take almost the full day, which was why the small group of young priests and temple servers decided to set off from Jerusalem at daybreak. A few months ago the first reports had started to circulate that a strange man who lived in the wilderness had started publicly baptizing people in … [Read more...]
Ordinary People
Stories engage our senses and captivate our thoughts. Come and listen to a story about a time when people were waiting for something and expecting someone who would change everything. Long ago there lived a man named John. John was a common name in that day so over the centuries following his death some confusion was inevitable. The fact that he would be associated with Jesus of Nazareth complicated things because this John would be confused with other men named John who knew Jesus, and … [Read more...]
The Deathbed
Stories engage our senses and captivate our thoughts. Come and listen to a story about a time when people were waiting for something and expecting someone who would change everything. John, the last living apostle of Jesus of Nazareth had only been back in Ephesus a few days before he fell ill. At first it was simply a fever for which he was administered cold compresses and local medicinal herbs along healthy doses of prayer offered up by those in the town that he had ministered to over the … [Read more...]
The Battle of Thanksgiving: High, Holy Days Go Head-to-Head
By Anthony B. Robinson Given the other conflicts raging here and there you may have missed this one, the Battle of Thanksgiving. The Battle of Thanksgiving? Really? Isn’t the Thanksgiving holiday, which we celebrate this week, a time of sharing and savoring, drawing together in gratitude and grace? Isn’t it a time for remembering and telling stories, welcoming to our homes those who are far from homes of their own, and giving thanks for the sheer gift and wonder of life, despite its … [Read more...]
My Life As A Goat…
This past week I was driving to a pastor’s meeting at our synod office when I exited the freeway, planning to turn left at the stoplight. There at the stoplight was a man with a sign asking for spare change. There were two left-turn lanes. The one on furthest left would’ve taken me right beside the man with the sign. The one next to it meant that I would avoid him. I just didn’t feel like dealing with it. I took the lane furthest from the man. When I got to the meeting we pastors did a Bible … [Read more...]
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