Category Archives: Sermons

The End Is The Beginning – sermon on Revelation 1:4b-8

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November 21, 2021
Christ the King B
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Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:4b-8)

The Alpha and the Omega … the “A to Z” … the beginning and the end: God is the one who is and who was and who is to come – in other words, God is beyond time. This is a pretty big idea for us to get our heads around. We often think in linear terms, so A to Z means a finite string of letters to us, not an all-encompassing understanding of everything that ever was or is or ever will be. Continue reading →

Birth Pangs – Sermon on Mark 13:1-8

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November 14, 2021
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We jump back into the gospel according to Mark today. This is the final chapter in the year of Mark – all that’s left is the passion story, which we heard during Lent. This is the final ‘regular’ Sunday in the church year – next week is Christ the King, and then Advent begins. Advent is always a two-fold expectation of Christ’s arrival. It’s no coincidence that we are getting ready to look forward to Jesus’ birth, just as Jesus is telling us to get ready for his coming again.

But right now, the story takes us from the temple, across the valley to the Mount of Olives. Continue reading →

Two Cents Worth – Sermon on Mark 12:38-44

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November 11, 2018

Have you ever given your opinion about something, and then said, “That’s just my two cents worth”? It’s a way of letting the person you’re talking to know that this is just your own opinion, and the listener is free to disagree. When we add our “two cents worth” to a discussion, we let people know that, “yeah, this is what I think, but I could be wrong. I’m no expert. Take it for what it’s worth – not much, maybe.”

Do you remember “sound bites”? We don’t hear about them much anymore, maybe because sound bites have been replaced with tweets. Continue reading →

Jesus Wept – Sermon on John 11:32-44

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All Saints Sunday 11/7/2021
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Jesus has completed his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. The triumphal entry into the city is already fading from memory. We’ve jumped from Mark’s gospel to John’s for this celebration of All Saints Sunday, so the timeline might seem a little crooked. But the trajectory of the story is the same: Jesus is getting closer to the Cross.

Since arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus has managed to make just about everyone angry. The shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” have given way to accusations of blasphemy, and threats of stoning. Jesus has gone back across the Jordan River to the place where John the Baptist was baptizing at the beginning of the story. While he is there, Mary and Martha send word to him that their brother Lazarus is sick. They ask him to come immediately, but he stays a couple more days. We can feel the tension building, even if Jesus seems not to be bothered. Continue reading →

Whoever You Are: Blind Faith – sermon on Mark 10:46-52

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October 24, 2021
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The story of Blind Bartimaeus acts as a bookend in Mark’s gospel. It closes out a long section that began back in chapter eight, when Jesus healed another blind man – only that time, Jesus had to spit twice before the man could see. This whole section has come to its climax here in chapter ten, where we’ve been walking with Jesus this month. The itinerary Jesus and his disciples have been following, as they travel from Galilee to Jerusalem, has been pretty … eventful.

Continue reading →

Whoever You Are: Greatest & Least – Sermon on Mark 10:35-45

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October 17, 2021
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I had a friend who worked really hard at appearing humble. In public, he was always putting himself down, always declining praise when he’d done something good. But in private, it was a different story.

One time he told me of a particularly generous thing he’d done for someone we both knew. And then he said, “But of course, I don’t want anyone to know it was me. Jesus says to give alms in secret.” And I thought, “but you just told me.” Continue reading →

Whoever You Are: First and Last – sermon on Mark 10:17-31

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October 10, 2021
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Have you ever held a garage sale? Somewhere in the process of getting all the items ready for the sale, did you ask yourself “How on earth did I accumulate so much stuff?” Our culture encourages consumerism – advertisers play on our emotions to convince us we really need something that, to be honest, we probably don’t need at all.

Mary Hunt writes a newspaper column called “The Everyday Cheapskate,” and she has a saying I really like. I think many of us could put it on our bathroom mirrors to read as we brush our teeth every morning: Continue reading →

Whoever You Are: Broken and Blessed – sermon on Mark 10:2-16

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October 3, 2021 (World Communion Sunday)
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We are beginning a new series this week, which will take us through the tenth chapter of the gospel according to Mark. Since we’ve been focused on the letter from James, we might need a little context to help us re-focus on the gospel story. Jesus is on the move. Several themes will appear in chapter ten. These themes are like threads in a tightly woven tapestry, weaving together ideas that might seem at first glance to be disconnected, but when woven together, they form a perfect image of the Kingdom of God.

There’s the theme of walking – in Chapter 9, Jesus walks down from the mount of transfiguration, and then takes his disciples on a walk through Galilee so he can teach them privately about his coming death and resurrection. Which, by the way, is teaching they don’t understand, but they are afraid to ask him about it. Continue reading →

Faith Works: We Don’t Do That Here – Sermon on James 3:13 -4:3, 7-11a

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September 19, 2021
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A young musician was substituting for the principal clarinet in the Chicago Symphony. Wanting to make a good impression, she prepared her music carefully, memorized all the hard passages, and when the time came to take her place for her first rehearsal, she played her heart out, dramatically moving with the music and waving her clarinet expressively as she played.

When there was a pause in the rehearsal, she smiled at the player sitting next to her. But he frowned at her, and said, “we don’t do that here.” In the Chicago Symphony, the focus is on the music, not the drama.

We’ve been working our way through the book of James, and I’ve mentioned before that this book, even though it comes in the form of a letter, really has more in common with Old Testament Wisdom literature than Paul’s letters to the early church. James has encouraged us to accept all people without showing favoritism to the rich. He’s taught us to listen first and speak second, and when we do speak, to mind our tongues.

This is all part of becoming more like Jesus, that process we call discipleship. As we work our faith, our faith begins to work in us, and our focus is more and more on Jesus, not the drama. Continue reading →

Faith Works: Mind Your Tongue – Sermon on James 3:1-12

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September 12, 2021
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James has been teaching us how to work our faith in order to develop a faith that works. Just before today’s reading, he writes, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” (James 2:26)

Our faith shows up in our work, what we do, how we live. But work without faith is just work. When our work is an expression of our faith, we grow in maturity, our words align with our actions, and our actions align with God’s will.

In today’s passage from the book of James, he dives a little deeper into the idea we heard a couple of weeks ago: “everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19) It’s that “slow to speak” part that can get us into trouble. When we let our tongues run ahead of us, whether we are being careless or intentionally hurtful, it damages our witness for Christ. Continue reading →