Sermon Archives

guilt
April 13, 2014

The Arrest

Most of us have kissed—or been kissed—at one time or another. When our sons were small, I probably I kissed each of them at least a thousand times, plus however many times Jenny kissed them. We don’t kiss our sons anymore—a fact for which they are profoundly grateful—although Jenny and I still kiss each other […]

March 17, 2013

Rubbish

During Lent we’ve been playing with the theme of honor and shame in various biblical passages. Our purpose has been to explore how God honors us, especially through the person of Christ; and how we in turn give honor to God. The text in front of us this morning is an eye‐popping passage. Paul plays […]

March 10, 2013

A Kiss of Peace

We already know what this parable means, right? We say this parable is about a foolish son who grabs his inheritance early, then wastes the money on prostitutes and other stupid expenses. The “prodigal” son, we call him, even though that word prodigal is not in Luke’s text. “Prodigal” because he’s wasteful and extravagant, because […]

March 3, 2013

Ashamed No More: Invitation, Challenge and Grace

Stories of war, disaster, tragedy fill our newspapers and news channels. Innocent people dying from drone attacks, school shootings, and suicide bombers. Intentional acts of violence targeting innocent and not‐soinnocent people alike. It is disheartening to listen to the news or read the newspaper. And yet, there’s also a part of human nature that wants […]

February 24, 2013

Humiliation to Glory

In this part of Philippians, Paul says Jesus Christ is a “Savior.” We and other Christians in the world often say Jesus is our Savior. It’s one of our favorite ways of talking about Jesus. “Jesus saved me from my sins,” we might say, “and he can save you from your sins too.” Through his […]

February 17, 2013

Honoring God

I grew up on a dairy farm, where one of our favorite pastimes was talking about neighboring farmers. We told stories about the three Schalliol brothers who lived on the farms north of us. We talked about the Vandecaers who lived on the next farm east of us. We chatted about the Hahns and Hunsbergers […]