Worship. Serve. Grow.

Sermons (Page 67)

The Liturgy of Advent

James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11
I’d like to do a little liturgical teaching this morning. Over the last few weeks of Advent we’ve heard about the theology of Advent, the spirituality of Advent. I’d like to talk a little about some of the liturgical things we do during this season of Advent…

Creation and Fullness

Matthew 3:1-12
Have you ever read something, while you’re reading a paragraph or you get to the bottom of the page, where you stop and say, “What did I just read? It doesn’t make any sense.” You go back and read it again. That happened a lot to me when I was in seminary…

Stay Awake!

Matthew 24:36-44
Rrrring! Oh, how I hate to hear that sound early in the morning. Such a jarring wake up call, especially when you’re sound asleep. Am I the only one tempted to press the snooze button right about now? …

Dream Pictures

2 Luke 22:33-43
Many of us have hopeful pictures in our lives. We might call them “dream pictures,” pictures that are early set in us and are often deep. Pictures of how we would like life to be. Or perhaps some picture that our parents have painted for us of the good life…

If All We Had Were the Beatitudes

Matthew 5:1-12
Imagine with me, if you can, that we lost all the scriptures. They disappeared from the Planet Earth. But all we had was this text that we just read from Matthew’s Gospel. This Gospel reading that is often referred to as the Beatitudes. I believe that if that’s all we had, we’d have what we need to know what it means to be a follower of Jesus…

An Envelope Marked Personal

Luke 18:9-14
On a wall in my den at home there is a small bulletin board where I put things I don’t want to lose or I cannot think of anywhere else to place them. Things like appointment reminder cards and the schedule of clergy duties on Sunday morning that George sends out to us every few months…

The Persistent Widow

2 Luke 18:1-8
“Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” For how many of us, was that the first prayer we were asked to memorize? Or did you rewrite it for your children as I did for my daughter?…