Evergreen Sermons
Touch the Earth Lightly
Text: Leviticus 26:3-22, 34-35, 40-45 I've started my last several sermons in this series about the environment with poems. But for this passage from Leviticus, it was a novel that came to mind. I'm going to read a short passages and then I'll say more about...
Discomfort with the Death of Pharaoh
Text: Exodus 14:21-31 Disney movies are notorious for having the villains in the movie fall to their deaths: Scar in the Lion King, Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, bad witches from Tangled to Snow White to Sleeping Beauty - all plunge to their demise. This...
Listening to the River
Text: Psalm 65 We're now in our third week of looking at the Bible with a lens of thinking about the natural world. And as I'm spending time with these texts that are essentially poems or songs about God as creator and about the functioning of the earth and...
Speaking with the Whirlwind
Text: Job 38 Now that I started this series using poetry, I felt like I needed to continue that pattern. So I went looking for poetry about creation. And especially about the heavens, about the weather and sky. And I found Joy Harjo. Thank God for Joy Harjo....
Skilled Mastery for God’s Masterpiece
Text: Genesis 1:1-2:4a The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry [watch an animation here, listen to Wendell Berry read here] When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may...
Workout Music
Text: Philippians 2:1-13 Not to brag, but I go to the gym two or three times a week to work with a trainer. The program that I'm part of is called "TEAM" training and usually I'm working with between 2 and 7 other people. Exactly who I'm with rotates depending...
Compassion, Action, Reflection
Text: Philippians 1:1-18 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that on...
Same, Same but Different
Text: Acts 17:16-34 Several years ago there was a special delegate session of MCUSA in Kansas city. This was after we'd had to skip an assembly because of Covid so there hadn't been delegate opportunities. And this was the session at which we discerned the...
Discipleship v Captivity
Text: Acts 16:16-36 Last Sunday morning I was listening to NPR both before and during my drive to church. And as I'm sure you all know, a news reader will periodically read the headlines between the Sunday puzzle and the interviews with authors and musicians...
It’s Okay to Change Your Mind
Text: Acts 9:1-19 Link to audio/video here. The story of Saul on the road to Damscus is often framed as a conversion story. It's referenced when people tell their own stories of conversion. And it's a big deal within the narrative of Acts - Saul recounts it several...