Category: Sermons
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Lectionary 18
August 3, 2025 The farmer in Jesus’ parable was quite content. He had a bumper crop that year. The harvest yielded more, much more, than what he needed. It was such a good year that he wondered what he would do with all that abundance. So, it led him to have a conversation. A conversation…
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The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost + Lectionary 16, Year C
July 20, 2025 Hospitality is a beautiful thing. Be it hosting coffee fellowship after church, putting on a dinner or event in the parish hall, or entertaining friends or neighbors in your home, when we engage in hospitality, relationships are enriched and others are treated as honored guests. The Bible is filled with stories of…
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The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
July 13, 2025 Like all of Jesus’ parables, the Parable of the Good Samaritan can be viewed from many different angles. Today I want to consider two: the view from the road and the view from the ditch. In taking the view from the road we see a man beaten up and half-dead on the…
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The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
July 6, 2025 (Year C) Every Sunday following the recessional hymn, the Deacon or Assisting Minister stands next to the baptismal font to declare “Go in Peace. Serve the Lord.” This liturgical action is called the dismissal but it could just as easily be called the commissioning. A dismissal declares that we are free to…
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Saints Peter and Paul
June 29, 2025 When I teach confirmation, I ask those who are about to affirm their baptism to engage in a little project. I ask they choose a favorite saint. Together, we look at the calendar of lesser festivals and commemorations to explore the lives of the saints. The lesser festivals are for biblical people…
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Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 11, 2025 “”Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised, so we also might walk in newness of life.” These words are inscribed on the floor along the perimeter of the square beneath the baptismal font. The baptistery is what we first encounter when we…
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The Third Sunday in Lent
We still get the paper edition of the Seattle Times every morning. The other day I was going through my morning ritual and when it came time to start reading the newspaper, I was taken aback. I’m not always taken aback. Like most of us, I’ve become accustomed and maybe even numb to bad news,…
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The Second Sunday of Lent
One spiritual practice I recommend during this season of Lent and pretty much anytime is the practice of lament. Prayers of lament go back to ancient times. Many of the psalms are psalms of lament. To lament is to complain. We lament as we grieve, lamenting the death of a loved one. We lament over…
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The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
Do you like happy endings? Not every story has one, but when they do, I sure enjoy them in a story I read or a film I watch. I’m a sucker for a happy ending, and the best happy endings are those that happen in real life. We learned of a happy ending in today’s…
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The Baptism of our Lord
When Jesus stepped into the waters of the Jordan River he stood beside a large mass of people who went to the river to be baptized by John. Jesus was going to receive the same baptism as everyone else. John the baptizer warned the people that the coming messiah would essentially “clean house” so they…