14th Sunday after Pentecost Jeremiah 15:15-21 Psalm 26:1-8 Romans 12:9-21 Matthew 16:21-28 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who overcomes evil with good. Amen Our readings for today feel very much like part 2 of a two part episode they continue directly on from where we left off last week, so cut to the “last week on ‘the sermon’” montage, in Matthew Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi and asked them wh

13th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 51:1-6 Psalm 138 Romans 12:1-8 Matthew 16:13-20 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the Messiah, the Son of the Living God Amen. Location, location, location, Jesus may have been an itinerant preacher but like anyone in real estate he knew the value of location and chose very specific spots for certain moments in his ministry, the location adding an intentional layer of meaning to whatever t

12th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 56:1, 6-8 Psalm 67 Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15:10-28 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one whose house is for all peoples. Amen Somewhere along the way in school I seem to remember learning that wind is created by air moving from high pressure to low pressure, now I went and looked it up and while that is true there’s a little more to it than just the pressure, heat from the s

11th Sunday after Pentecost 1 Kings 19:9-18 Psalm 85:8-13 Romans 10:5-15 Matthew 14:22-33 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to us in the midst of storms. Amen Faith is simple, Paul seems to say in our reading from Romans this morning, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” that’s it and it is a universal option

10th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 55:1-5 Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21 Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14"13-21 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who has compassion for us. Amen The crowds were hungry for more than food. In fact the food part of this story, which is amazing and what we tend to focus on is really only an incidental part of the big picture, the food was not the reason they were out there in the wilderness, following J

9th Sunday after Pentecost 1 Kings 3:5-12 Psalm 119:129-136 Romans 8:26-39 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one whose grace assures us that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God. Amen “Have you understood all this?” Jesus asks his disciples at the end of his barrage of parables. “They answered, ‘yes.’” A yes which seems a tad overconfident to me but then what else were t

8th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 44:6-8 Psalm 86:11-16 Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who will sort everything out. Amen So It’s always a fun week when the gospel mentions sinners burning in a furnace of fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Welcome back from vacation…. It’s a dramatic image that captures our imagination and there is a certain tradition of preachers wh

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Jeremiah 28:5-9 Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:40-42 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who brings the kingdom of God. Amen We have a very short gospel for today, only three verses, and on the face of it, it seems like a pretty simple message, that all kinds of welcome, even small gestures, are important to Jesus. Indeed many congregations, including ours, like to empha

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Jeremiah 20:7-13 Psalm 69:7-10, 16-18 Romans 6:1b-11 Matthew 10:24-39 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who values us more than many sparrows. Amen The other morning when I asked my husband how he’d slept the night before he said he’d had some trouble falling asleep but on the plus side he used that time to do some reading and then proceeded to excitedly tell me that he had learned that t

2nd Sunday after Pentecost Hosea 5:15-6:6 Psalm 50:7-15 Romans 4:13-25 Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Amen Abraham was not perfect. Paul really oversells Abraham as he lifts him up as the exemplar of faith, of what an ideal relationship with God looks like. Which is kind of funny because doing so runs c

Pentecost Acts 2:1-21 Psalm 104:24-35b 1 Corinthians 12:3-13 John 20:19-23 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who gathers us in and sends us out. Amen It’s the festival of Pentecost! Each year at this time I’m reminded of a song from my children’s choir days -you will not be shocked to hear that I was an avid and enthusiastic participant in children’s choir at least in my elementary years- anyway the song went a little

Seventh Sunday in Easter Acts 1:6-14 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11 John 17:1-11 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is glorified in us. Amen Well we have reached the end of the season of Easter, and today on the seventh Sunday of Easter we stand in the middle of the middle as Jesus ascends to the Father. Behind us lies Jesus’ death, resurrection and forty days of resurrection appearances, ahead of us lies Pentecost a

Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:8-20 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is not far from each of us. Amen Fumbling about for God. This image that Paul uses in his speech to the Athenians to describe the human search for God stuck with me this week, I think for the truth of the image, for isn’t that what we do as humans? We fumble about for God, even though God is not

Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 7:55-60 Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 1 Peter 2:2-10 John 14:1-14 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is the way, Amen. “Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’” Jesus has just told his disciples that he will be leaving them. He says a lot of other things too but I imagine it was hard for the disciples to really listen very carefully after he tol

Fourth Sunday in Easter Acts 2:42-47 Psalm 23 1 Peter 2:19-25 John 10:1-10 Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed, Alleluia! Today, the fourth Sunday in Easter, has the unofficial title of Good Shepherd Sunday as there are sheep and shepherds all over our readings for today. God, Jesus, as the Good Shepherd is one of the most common images all throughout the scriptures and has caught the imagination of many particularly those who love Psalm 23. But what doe

Third Sunday in Easter Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19 1 Peter 1:17-23 Luke 24:13-35 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to those who are near and those who are far off. Amen Who is the message of Christ, the promise of God for? According to Peter in his Pentecost sermon: “For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” (Acts

Second Sunday of Easter Acts 2:14a, 22-32 Psalm 16 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to us in our fear and offers us peace Amen. It was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, because they were afraid John tells us that they were afraid of the religious authorities, the ones who had engineered Jesus’ crucifixion thou

Palm Sunday * Matthew 21:1-11 Isaiah 50:4-9a Psalm 31:9-16 Philippians 2:5-11 Matthew 21:12-16, 33-46 Matthew 26:1-16 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the truly powerful one who comes riding on a donkey. Amen From the very beginning of his gospel narrative Matthew has been contrasting the power and authority of God with those who claim authority and power in the world. After Jesus is born, the magi come to King Herod as

5th Sunday in Lent Ezekiel 37:1-14 Psalm 130 Romans 8:6-11 John 11:1-45 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who calls us out of death to new life. Amen “You shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live…” This is what God does. God brings life out of death. This is the glory of God. Next week we enter Holy We

4th Sunday in Lent 1 Samuel 16:1-13 Psalm 23 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who looks on the heart amen. “How long will you grieve over Saul?” the Lord asks the prophet Samuel at the beginning of our first reading for today, God has removed favor from Saul as king of Israel and is preparing to anoint another, and Samuel is having a hard time making the transition. Which is kind of