The Peace of Christ be with you all. There are six of us here in the sanctuary at Westminster, bringing you the live-stream service, but we share peace through the gift of the Internet. On this somber day in Oregon, it may seem odd for me to begin the sermon with humor. But when I … read
This week I heard a great story from our Universalist Unitarian friends. It goes like this. Among the most accomplished and fabled tribes of Africa, no tribe was considered to have warriors more fearsome or more intelligent than the mighty Masai. It is perhaps surprising, then, to learn the traditional greeting that passed between Masai … read
A few years ago my first cousin once removed on my father’s mother’s side self-published a family history entitled “Yonder Will Be Better.” It’s the story of the Clark family moving around the United States beginning in the early 1800s, from Kentucky to Mississippi to Arkansas to Missouri to California to Utah and back to … read
It’s Transfiguration Sunday, although today’s sermon has nothing to do with that particular story. It’s a transitional day, marking the end of Epiphany and next week, the beginning of Lent. In terms of our preaching texts, it’s transitional too. Some of you might be thinking “hallelujah!” as it’s our last day in the Hebrew Scriptures, … read
It’s Jazz Sunday at Westminster. It didn’t dawn on me until after I’d entitled my sermon “Hosea Sings the Blues.” A quick check with Jeff Lewis assured me that jazz’s roots are in the blues, so we’re good to go. Wanting a sermonic riff on that title, I thought about using jazz tunes as sermon … read
All this week I have wondered why in the world the Book of Jonah is in the Bible. If you took it out, you really wouldn’t miss it, though Sunday School programs would need to find a new use for all their whale flannel graphs. We might say that Biblical scholars are a bit like … read