3 Pentecost C—6/5/16 1 Kings 17:17-24; Psalm 30; Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 7:11-17 Pr. Scott Kramer Over the past few weeks the church calendar has made a transition from the season of Easter to the season of Pentecost. We are now in the long season of green, in which God’s Word instructs us in the ways of spiritual growth and maturity. And yet, both our reading from 1 Kings and our reading from Luke are very similar resurrection stories. This sounds like Easter! What’s going on here? The first … [Read more...]
Goodness and Mercy
4 Easter C—4/17/16 Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30 Pr. Scott Kramer When I go to the gym I like to listen to audiobooks while I’m working out. One book this past week was about a famous person you might recognize [play audio]. Yes, it’s My Brief History, a short autobiography of Stephen Hawking, the famous cosmologist. As you may know, when Hawking was a young man he developed ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak for most of his … [Read more...]
The Father’s Love
4 Lent C—3/6/16 Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3,11b-32 Pr. Scott Kramer Our bank statement came in the mail a few days ago. This month, just like every other month, we need to check to see if the bank’s figures and our checkbook figures agree. You do this, too. We call it reconciling the checkbook. The word “reconcile” shows up in some form no fewer than five times in today’s short reading from 2 Corinthians. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: … [Read more...]
Hen and Chicks
2 Lent C—2/21/16 Genesis 15:1-12,17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35 Pr. Scott Kramer You may recall that Sunday readings for the season of Lent began last week with the story of Jesus’ temptations. We were reminded that the temptations Jesus experienced during his life were much like those that we face: very ordinary, very every-day. One of the greatest of these ordinary temptations is the desire to create a God in our own image. You may remember from the Book of Genesis that … [Read more...]
Stoned Prophets
Second Sunday in Lent February 21, 2016 Luke 13:31-35 Melody Kroeger The Attorney General of the United States came to warn him. “We have reports that there’s a sniper in the outskirts of Montgomery waiting to shoot Dr. King.” King refused to leave his supports behind and seek safety in a northern state. “I don’t care what happens,” Dr. King told his advisors, “I have to march and I have to be in the front line”. Martin Luther King was in trouble. The same sort of trouble that … [Read more...]
Word(s) to Live By
2 Christmas C—1/3/15 Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:1-18 Pr. Scott Kramer Week after week we hear these words: Word of God. Word of Life. And the people respond: Praise to you, O Christ. This morning when you hear “Word of God, Word of Life…” your response is: Thanks be to God! As we conclude the Christmas season, what is the word of God for us? What is the word of life that will feed and sustain us as we move forward into this New Year? Each of the readings for … [Read more...]
Go to Zarephath
24 Pentecost B—11/8/15 1 Kings 17:8-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44 Pr. Scott Kramer How many times in your life have you been fired from your job? Football coach Jim White had been fired three times. He'd burned his bridges. The only job he could get was in the small town of McFarland, at a public school for the children of Latino farm workers in California’s Central Valley. The year was 1987. McFarland’s football team was hopeless. But the new coach realized that … [Read more...]
A Rabbi Walks Into a Bar…
18 Pentecost B—9/27/15 Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29; Ps. 19:7-14; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50 Pr. Scott Kramer (a story, based on Mark 9:38-50) So, a rabbi walks into a bar… It had been a long day of preaching and teaching. The rabbi looks around, and sees that it’s a mixed crowd. Some in the crowd are movers and shakers in the local community. They’re well-heeled, accustomed to getting what they want, successful, respected, and they are religious. Most in the crowd, though, … [Read more...]
Love and Justice
15 Pentecost B—9/6/15 Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37 Genesis 1:1-25; Romans :18-23; John 1:1-14 Pr. Scott Kramer Over the past couple of Sundays we have heard Jesus teach that religion, tradition, and ritual are “worthless”…unless they lead us to a deeper understanding of God’s love and a deeper practice of God’s love for all people! Today we begin the Season of Creation, which congregations of many denominations around the world observe this year—and every … [Read more...]
Beyond Tradition
14 Pentecost B—8/30/15 Deut. 4:1-2,6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23 Pr. Scott Kramer This morning’s gospel reading from Mark picks up where last week’s reading from John left off: All the Jews do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it and there are also many other traditions that they observe…So the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your … [Read more...]