Sermons Archive

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when God will make a new covenant with humanity.  God’s Law of Love will be written on every heart in each breast.  The Lord will be our God and we will be God’s people.  God will create in every one of us a clean heart, and God’s Spirit will thrive in every breast!  What a glorious time this will be...

In our Lectionary reading today, the letter to the Ephesians is written to a church that is struggling amongst itself.  As we break open this Lectionary reading together here, I am struck once again that Christians around the world are also reflecting on this same reading on this 4^th Sunday of Lent.

On the one hand, there are...

When we read the 19^th Psalm today, we heard two different deeply interwoven themes.  We heard of the glorious handiwork of God all around us in the universe, both large scale and small.  But we also heard another story.  A story of relationship between the creator and humanity.  When I imagine the glorious majesty of God, I imagine...

Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.  The verb logizomai in the Greek meansto come to a conclusion through accounting for all the facts, or simply, to conclude.  So a clearer translation of the verse is, “Therefore we conclude that a person is justified by faith without the deeds of...

On this day that we make a covenant with our new members, we hear the story of the first covenant made by God.  In the story of Noah, God repents about again destroying the earth and all of its inhabitants.  After the flood, God promises that God will never again destroy all flesh.  God marks...

Paul tells the church at Corinth, “For it is God who says let the light shine out of the darkness.”  And Mark says Jesus was transfigured in brilliant light before them.  The message of Jesus, the message that God loves us unconditionally, blinds the whole universe with its brilliant radiant...

Na-a-man, a great and respected warrior of Aram, now modern-day Syria, had leprosy.  In the ancient world, leprosy could mean many different kinds of skin afflictions.  He had, as we said with the children earlier, a bad boo-boo.  And notice at the beginning of the passage it says that God gave Naaman victory for Aram...

In our Epistle lesson today, Paul talks about his freedom to do as he wishes.  Paul also talks about his response-ability to lift up the gospel in different ways.  Paul proclaims that different people in different contexts need to hear the message Paul is proclaiming differently, so Paul “...

We experience many kinds of authority in our world.  A police officer, a teacher, a store clerk, a stoplight.  Each of these external authorities directs our actions with punishments and rewards.  Perhaps a rule book is the authority in a game golf or football, a recipe book an authority as dinner is being prepared.   We have hundreds of small...

In our passage from First Corinthians, Paul says the appointed time is short, and our Gospel from Mark says the time is now fulfilled.  Certainly our passages today have something to say about time.  Time is an interesting and untouchable thing.  Yesterday is but a memory.  Tomorrow is a dream.  All that we really have is...