Sermons

May 3, 2020 – 1 Corinthians 1:10-31

1 Corinthians 1:10-31 So what’s the deal with Corinth? Paul had been there a while back to get the church started, to do some teaching and preaching, and then, as the Spirit called, he moved on to the next city. But what we know from the bible is that Paul would keep...

read more

Easter Sunday 2020 – Mark 16:1-8

Mark 16:1-8 To be seized by the living Lord is a fierce and a terrible and a beautiful thing. The sort of thing that one never really recovers from. Not really. I mean, can you imagine it! Can you imagine the gloom of that first Easter morning. That long walk to the...

read more

Good Friday 2020 – Mark 15:16-39

Mark 15:16-39 In some ways, Mark really is the least “theological” of the gospels. The other gospels, to varying degrees, do more to try and help “unpack” what Jesus is up to. They include more of Jesus’ teachings. They offer a little more explanation. They tweak...

read more

Palm Sunday 2020 – Mark 11:1-11

Mark 11:1-11 It was supposed to be an easy victory. I mean, all the signs were there. Everything was in place. What more did you need?  Here was a guy who could defeat disease and demons. Who could feed thousands with next to nothing. Who could even bring people back...

read more

March 29, 2020 – Mark 13:1-8, 24-37

Mark 13:1-8, 24-37 Boy, what a week for an apocalyptic text. Well, technically, we could call it a “pre-apocalyptic” text. If we had time (and let’s be honest, we’ve got the time) we would note that “apocalypse” is really just the Greek word for “THE BIG REVEAL!”, the...

read more

March 22, 2020 – Mark 12:28-44

Mark 12:28-44 Let’s be clear, right off the bat, this is not, I repeat not, a story about how little old ladies on fixed incomes should be giving more to the church. In fact, you could make the argument (and I’m going to in a minute) that this isn’t even a story about...

read more

March 8, 2020 – Mark 10:32-45

Mark 10:32-45 I had this goal, a dream, you might say, when I was 14, 15 years old. See, my goal was to save up enough money to buy my own car when I turned 16 and then be financially independent by the time I was 18. I had a dream. I had a job. I had a plan. I just...

read more

March 1, 2020 – Mark 10:17-31

Mark 10:17-31 If you were here on Ash Wednesday, then you heard the story, shortly before this one, of when Jesus was teaching his disciples what “greatness” truly is. And do to so, he pulls a young child into the middle of the crowd and says, “Whoever welcomes one...

read more

Ash Wednesday 2020 – Mark 9:30-37

Mark 9:30-37 There’s an old story in Jewish lore of a young student who approaches his teacher and asks, “Rabbi, why don’t people see God today as they did in the olden days?”And the wise Rabbi puts his hands on his student’s shoulders and says, “The answer, my son,...

read more

February 23, 2020 – Mark 8:27-9:8

Mark 8:27-9:8 There’s this idea in Celtic spirituality called “thin places”. And, according to the Celts, “thin places” are times and places when the veil between heaven and earth is so thin, we can nearly see through it. When we are given a glimpse of the “story...

read more

February 16, 2020 – Mark 7:1-23

Mark 7:1-23 So there’s a couple things we need to understand about Judaism in the first century to really get what’s going on here. But to drastically oversimplify things, we need to go all the way back to Abraham. And the covenant that God made with him. See, God...

read more

February 9, 2020 – Mark 6:1-13, 30-34

Mark 6:1-13, 30-30 The reading today starts with Jesus going to his hometown synagogue to do some teaching and preaching, where he promptly gets rejected and even insulted. He then sends 12 of the disciples out as apostles, two by two. We then have a big group of...

read more

February 2, 2020 – Mark 5:21-43

Mark 5:21-43 Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Tell the truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth. Do you realize how scary that is? I would say, most of the time, most of us are living lives of...

read more

January 26, 2020 – Mark 4:21-41

Mark 4:21-41 Jesus said, “With what can we compare the Kingdom of God? Or what parable will we use for it?” And he goes on to use all sorts of parables to try and teach something of what the Kingdom of God is like. It’s almost as if Jesus knows the Kingdom is too...

read more

January 19, 2020 – Mark 4:1-20

Mark 4:1-20 One of the fun feature in Mark is that he consistently portrays the disciples sort of like idiots. Like, through the whole gospel, they just don’t get it. Over and over again, the train sort of leaves the station without them. And, yeah, sometimes you read...

read more

January 12, 2020 – Mark 2:15-28

Mark 2:15-28 Mark does not waste time with details. We enter the story just after Jesus has been doing some teaching along the beach, he sees Levi, the tax collector, calls him as a disciple, and ends up at his house for dinner. From there, we go pretty quickly...

read more

Sunday, 1/5/2020 Sermon

According to the book of Leviticus, “The person who has a leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of their head be disheveled. And he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘unclean, unclean!’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he...

read more

Christmas Day Sermon 12/25/19

Emperor Augustus was born in 63 BCE. He came to power when he was 37 and reigned as Emperor for 38 years, until he died at the age of 75 in the year 14. He was known as one of history’s most effective rulers who ended decades of civil war in Rome and ushered in a new...

read more

Christmas Eve Sermon 12/24/19

I don’t know if you know this or not, but Christmas was actually a showdown of epic proportions. Celestial proportions, even. In this corner, we have Emperor Augustus! Ruler of the Roman Empire. The man who stopped civil war, consolidated power, brought 200 years(!)...

read more