Sermon Archives

Listening
January 17, 2021

Do you hear what I hear?

You know, stopping here, stopping at verses 10, we’re pretty sure that we know the three golden nuggets of truth to take away from it. This is a story about how God speaks to us and how we often fail to recognize it.

April 5, 2020

When Every Day is Good Friday

I always feel conflicted about Palm Sunday. We go from celebrating the entry of Christ into Jerusalem to a week of thinking about Easter dinners, baked goods, and dyed eggs to Good Friday. I feel that “Good Friday” is always a bit of a misnomer. While Jesus’ resurrection can certainly be labeled “good,” there’s really […]

November 10, 2019

The Spirituality of the Blues

(Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, Bessie Smith)[1] Nobody knows you when you’re down and out. That song is by Bessie Smith, nicknamed The Empress of the Blues, one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920’s and 30’s. I listened to the blues as I prepared this message. That’s because I […]

April 22, 2018

Humbly, Fervently Draw Near

A prayer from Paul to the Church at Ephesus goes something like this: “I pray that you may be given the spirit of wisdom & vision, so that the eyes of your hearts may be illumined, & you will KNOW the Hope to which you have been called.” A prayer from St Francis begins: Almighty, […]

February 11, 2018

The More of God

In 1975, I climbed a mountain. In actuality it was probably just a big hill, and it was behind our short-term voluntary service unit in San Clemente, California. (We were there to help in the resettlement of the boat people who had escaped from Viet Nam.) That morning I’d read an article encouraging women to […]

January 14, 2018

The Boo of Christ

At the beginning of Advent, I was walking with our 2 year old grandchildren in Pittsburgh. And when we came to a nativity scene in a neighbor’s yard, they both commented that there was no baby Jesus there. Where is he? they wanted to know. I tried to explain that it’s Advent and we are […]

November 12, 2017

Uncomfortable Questions

Jesus is the answer. That’s a message you might hear from other Christians, read on bumper stickers, or see on billboards. At least one contemporary Christian singer and songwriter, Andraé Crouch, wrote a song called “Jesus is the Answer.” A couple of years ago, Thomas Nelson publishers released a book called The Jesus Answer Book. […]

January 17, 2016

Listen! A Sower Went out to Sow

“Listen! A sower went out to sow.” Today we encounter Jesus as a preacher and teacher. In a list of roles and attributes you assign to Jesus, Does “Teacher” appear? Where on the list? For me, it’s pretty high. Because as I was Growing up in the Mennonite church, I found my church pointing my […]