Well, we are back to the season of waiting. In the life of the church, the four Sundays before Christmas Day are known as Advent, in which we are waiting for the birth of Emmanuel: God with Us. The scripture this morning calls us to prepare, to ready ourselves to receive God. Writer Michelle Blake … read
To really get into the Scripture text this morning, I decided to do an experiment—I decided to make a bowl using a children’s pottery kit. I made a video of it, which you can see online here: “We are the clay, and you are our potter, we are all the work of your hand.” What … read
In preparation for this sermon, I was in a Zoom meeting with some other clergy from around the United States. The Reverend Angie Shannon is a Lutheran pastor, an African-American woman, who serves a congregation in Maryland. Her grandmother lived to age 100. As Angie said, “She seen some stuff. She saw how you hold … read
What are you afraid of? What do you dream of doing? Let’s let those two questions sit for a while; I promise I’ll come back to them. These parables at the end of Matthew should give the community of faith pause. They are not for the faint-hearted, those who think of the end times in … read
When Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, you might have seen this phrase posted in the media somewhere: “May her memory be for blessing.” She was Jewish, of course, and Jewish tradition doesn’t focus very much on what happens after we die. So we say, “May this person’s memory be for blessing.” People also … read
What does it mean to love God? I was not very far into my study of this text when I hit that question. What does it mean to love God? How can we love God, the infinite mystery, the source of all that is? I understand, more or less, what it means to love my … read