They say that at least once a year on a Sunday morning, pastors ought to preach a funeral sermon. The thinking is that throughout any given year, you all will know someone who’s died who may not have had a funeral or memorial service, or maybe you weren’t able to make it to a service…
Now that we’re in the third article (section) of the creed, I think it’s helpful if we think of last week as the “topic sentence” – I believe in the Holy Spirit – and then the phrases that come after as under that. The Holy Spirit has everything to do with the church, the communion…
The story goes about the brand new pastor who had been in his first church for just over one month. One day, he heard a knock at the door of the parsonage. “Is that the Methodist church?” a grinning stranger asked. He said yes. “Is this the parsonage?” “Yes ma’am, it is.” “Well, I need…
I have been enjoy our time with the Apostles’ Creed this year as a sort of journey. On the calendar it has a beginning, middle and an end. Feb. 17, March 31, and May 19th to be exact. It has sections where the road is smooth, sharp corners that take us to new places (descended…
Normally, the Bible reading for today begins a number of Sundays when we hear the stories of Jesus appearing to the disciples in his resurrection body. And as we move through them we are reminded that in the Church, Easter is a season, not just a day. So we’ll leave the resurrection balloon up until…
Expectations – Expectations have everything to do with how we experience the world around us and the events we encounter. Sometimes our expectations will miss the mark and we’ll be surprised – either for the better or for the worse. Other times our expectations can serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy and we’ll get just what…
The story is a little out of order tonight. This day – Maundy Thursday – is intended to commemorate the last night before Jesus died, focusing on the Last Supper. Tomorrow – Good Friday – we remember Jesus’ death; and Saturday – the “silent” day when nothing seems to be happening in the story –…
Sometime within the last 15 or 20 years a shift took place in the church. What was forever Palm Sunday, focusing on Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem the week before his death, became Passion Sunday. The reason for the shift is sad really. Realizing that most people won’t go to church on Maundy Thursday or Good…
Today we are wonderfully “out of season” as we hear the stories we typically hear on Christmas Eve, sing a Christmas hymn, hear a Christmas anthem and ponder what it means for God to be born in the world in the way in which He was. And while the two versions of the story I…
The Apostles’ Creed is like an ancient road map of the Christian faith, written by the church in the first couple hundred years after Jesus died. Jesus himself did not put out formal doctrinal statements, either about himself, the world, God, or anything else. Rather he lived a life, taught in metaphors and parables, and…