Sermon Archives

forgiveness
July 10, 2022

Family Likeness

Family Likeness

When my oldest granddaughter was four-years-old, she made a bold pronouncement: “I’m a strong, independent woman.” That drew some chuckles, recognizing where that came from: she picked it up from her feminist mother. Often, in observing the conduct of children, we’re inclined to say: Doesn’t she just remind you of her mother/father. Or, You can […]

October 27, 2019

Looking Toward the Finish Line

I’ve watched at least two dozen people die, possibly three dozen. Many of those deaths were navigated well, but at least two of them were not. The first death happened to a young man with AIDS. Back in those long-ago days, getting AIDS was an automatic death sentence because medical science had no way of […]

February 24, 2019

A Noble and Generous Spirit

What is the nastiest thing that ever happened to you? What events in your life caused you the most suffering, the most pain, the most misery? What grand injustice came to you, stirring up enormous frustration and intense anger inside you?

April 17, 2016

An Alternate View of Hell

Today I’m going to talk about hell. If you were here two weeks ago, you’ll remember a sermon on what happens to Christians after they die. After that sermon, the college class suggested I do something on hell. So I’m going to talk a little about hell today, but I want you to know that […]

March 6, 2016

Two Lost Sons

Most of my life I’ve assumed that this parable is about repentance and forgiveness. People get to the theme of repentance and forgiveness partly by focusing on the younger son, often called the prodigal son. People also get to this interpretation from verses 18 and 19. In those verses the starving younger son decides to […]

March 29, 2015

Learning from the Death of Jesus

In this series on death and dying, we’ve thought theologically about funerals, explored the pathway of grief, heard stories of loss and thought about responding to loss, and last Sunday, named some ways to prepare for our own dying. One important topic still remains for us, and that’s to think a little today about how […]

November 9, 2014

Forgiveness

Almost anytime I call Jan during the day, or send her an email (unless someone is listening in or others are copied), or just see her at the end of the day — I will almost always start out with, “So. Do you still love me?” Now Jan says that this is just because I […]

June 2, 2013

Fools in Love

I believe that one of the great purposes of the Church is to receive encouragement from one another and to learn from each other’s experiences. There are two life lessons I would like to share with you today that I have learned through my experiences. These lessons are quite precious to me. The first is […]