Sermons

    It is one of the most basic tenets of scripture in both the Old and New Testaments -- hospitality to the stranger.     Abraham and Sarah are the first in scripture to model it. Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent when he...

    Eighteen years. For 18 years the woman has not been able to stand up straight. For 18 years she has been hunched over, her back so bent that all she can see is the ground around her.     For 18 years she has not seen the sun or the...

    It is Independence Day weekend, a time that we celebrate the founding of this nation that we all love. It seems appropriate to be in church this weekend to offer prayers for our country.     By any standards this is a difficult time...

    "For freedom Christ has set us free."     It is uncanny how often the Biblical readings on any given Sunday connect directly to the events going on around us.     In this week when freedom, or the lack of it, is in the...

    It’s a dangerous moment for Christianity.     The disciple are gathered together in a locked room. It’s a familiar place to them. They locked themselves away from the world after Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, fearing that those who...

    If you came here this morning expecting to hear some words of wisdom or comfort from me, I'm sorry.      I have no words. No words to ease the pain, no words of hope, no words of wisdom.      All I can offer...

    Last Saturday afternoon I made a routine run to the grocery store. I checked things off my list, chatted with a friend I ran into in the spice section, stood in line, paid for my items, then went home.     All across America...

    "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."     This is the first, and will most likely be the only, time that I have quoted Joseph Stalin in a sermon.      We are fast approaching a sobering...

Utter nonsense. Foolishness. An idle tale. Every year we begin our Easter celebrations with shouts of joy: “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” we cry. “The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!” As we make this joyful proclamation, we may think we are echoing the words with which...

It didn’t have to end this way. A question that perhaps every Christian has asked at some point is this: Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Or perhaps more to the point: What kind of God would allow, even demand, the torture and death of his own son? Writer Mary...

    Today begins the most sacred week of the Christian year, the week that we walk with Jesus on the path that ends with resurrection, but first goes through betrayal, arrest, torture, and death.     Holy Week, as it is called, begins...

    The cross is looming large before us on the horizon. We are deeply into Lent. At the end of our service next Sunday we will find ourselves at the foot of the cross, watching as Jesus' hands and feet are nailed into the wood, cringing as he is left...

    “There was a man who had two sons.”  Thus begins what is probably the best known of all of Jesus’ stories, usually known as the parable of the prodigal son.     This tale of the son who takes his inheritance, squanders it, then...

It starts out as just an ordinary day. Moses is doing what he always does, leading his father-in-law’s flock to food and water. Tending someone else’s herd isn’t much of a job – in fact it is work usually given to women and children.     But Moses...

    The promise was  outrageous from the beginning. Abraham is an old man, 75 years old. His wife Sarah is 65. They have no children, and at their age, no hope of having any. They are nomadic people with no land to call their own....