29 Apr, 2024
(Second in a series on the four elements.) Let’s begin with the story of John the Baptist in Luke 3. In this scene, John is baptizing people, but at the same time letting everyone know that “…someone is coming who is mightier than I… this One...
22 Apr, 2024
This week we begin a four part series on the four elements. In the words of Richard Rohr, When God manifests spirit through matter, then matter becomes a holy thing. The material world is the place where we can comfortably worship God just by...
15 Apr, 2024
In the Gospel of John, a gospel known for its mysticism and metaphor, its unique stories, and its sometimes significantly different versions of events, Peter is an interesting character. He wants to be all in, and yet by his actions he...
01 Apr, 2024
I always try to be honest with you and preach with as much integrity as possible, which sometimes means that I’m going to tell you that I struggle with certain topics, certain days. This is one of them. I struggle with Easter. Seems odd, doesn’...
30 Mar, 2024
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey, people lined the streets shouting “Hosanna!” which is a Hebrew expression of two words meaning “Save, I [we] pray.” As I said on Sunday, those shouts had absolutely nothing to do...
25 Mar, 2024
What is justice? Too many people mean punishment when they say they want justice . Justice is a righting of the universe, it equalizes, makes safer, makes more compassionate, more accepting. Justice is distributive, restorative, not retributive...
18 Mar, 2024
Discernment, in spirituality, is the ability to sense the presence of the divine in wisdom and/or guidance; to perceive intuitively, or spiritually, the answers, insight, or the best path forward. I believe Jesus offered the gift of discernment...
11 Mar, 2024
By definition, resilience is “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.” It is essential to getting through life, though I doubt many of us give it much thought. Jesus didn't really talk about it either, but he...
04 Mar, 2024
This Lent we are talking about the Gifts of Jesus . One of the most beautiful gifts he shared was the gift of belonging. For this message we read the story of Jesus healing the bleeding woman and the twelve-year-old girl in March 5:21-43. Now,...
26 Feb, 2024
Taken literally, the story in the Gospel of Mark of the paralyzed person being lowered through a roof to Jesus is pretty farfetched. Imagine 2,000 years ago trying to get a paralyzed person up on a roof in the middle of a crowd, then to cut a...