Sermons (Page 2)

A young farmer was standing in his field one day when he observed a peculiar cloud formation. The clouds formed the letters G, P, C. Being a good Christian, he concluded that it must be a message from God.  He thought to himself, “God is calling me to Go Preach Christ!”  So, the young farmer rushed to find his pastor and the leaders of the church and insisted that he had been called by God to Go Preach Christ.  Respectful…

There are many things we learn from our faith.  We learn how to treat other people.  We learn what priorities to set in life.  We learn moral guidelines to use in making decisions.  But what you believe is the most important thing we learn from our faith depends on who you listen to. The gospel writers, for example, have a difference of opinion concerning what is of primary importance in our understanding of the defining element of our faith—the identity…

Way back in my first semester of seminary, in a course titled Introduction to the New Testament, our professor made a comment that stuck in my mind. He said the Gospel of Matthew is the “most Jewish” of the four gospels. What he meant was that the writer of Matthew consistently quotes the Hebrew scriptures to demonstrate to his readers that Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment of ancient prophecy, the hope of Israel. For that reason, I thought it…

Tonight means different things for different people. For children it’s one of the most exciting nights of the year. For their parents it might mean something else. One unknown mother expressed her wishes at Christmas in a letter to Santa.  She wrote, Dear Santa, I’ve been a good mother all year. I have fed, cleaned, and cuddled my children on demand, visited my doctor’s office more than my doctor has, sold sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money to…

One of the things I love about this time of year is the opportunity to visit with friends in their homes.  I’d say that over the past few weeks I’ve attended holiday gatherings in no fewer than half a dozen different homes.  And like lots of people, many of these friends like to line up the holiday cards they have received on the shelf above their fireplace.  So, when you enter the living room you see not only how many…

The Gospel reading for this morning has always puzzled me.  The story is pretty simple; John the Baptist sends some of his followers to talk to Jesus, to ask if he is really the Messiah, or whether they should keep looking.  Then, rather than getting into a bunch of theological jargon, Jesus simply tells them to look around at what they see going on and to decide for themselves.  What they see, of course, is amazing.  The blind are receiving…

If there is one thing that my work as a priest has taught me, it is that life is full of uncertainty.  And, perhaps because of that reality, many of us spend a great deal of time searching for things that we believe we can count on.  A fisherman will go back to that special spot that always produces fish.  A gardener will find it difficult to switch from tried and true varieties of vegetables.  People look for sure things…

There’s a book I read a number of years ago that I occasionally return to for reflection. The Gospel of Inclusion was written by the former Pentecostal mega-church pastor, Carlton Pearson.  In this book, Pearson, who now preaches a Gospel of universal salvation, spends a great deal of time looking at the concept of “the end times.” The end times is the theological belief in the 2nd coming of Christ as a day of judgment when Jesus will return and…