20th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 25:1-9 Psalm 23 Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-4 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one whose invitation is transformational. Amen I just have to start off by saying- this parable is ridiculous, each sentence is more absurd than the last, it is rife with logical inconsistencies, full of hyperbole (at least we hope) and seems utterly divorced from reality or if it is describing reality i

Creation in Christ Genesis 1:1-2:4a Psalm 148 Acts 17:22a-24-28 John 1:1-5 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from Christ our creator. Amen Today we are celebrating for the first time a new Festival that is in the process of being added to the church calendar. This is particularly exciting for liturgy nerds such as myself because it’s been over a hundred years since a new festival has been added to the liturgical calendar (for all

18th Sunday after Pentecost Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 Psalm 25:1-9 Philippians 2:1-3 Matthew 21:23-32 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who enables us to will and work for God’s good pleasure. Amen. It’s been a few years since I had to look for a job outside of the pastoral call process but from what I remember and having watched others look for jobs, who you know and who knows you can make a big difference in getting hi

17th Sunday after Pentecost Jonah 3:10-4:11 Psalm 145:1-8 Philippians 1:21-30 Matthew 20:1-16 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who provides us with perspective. Amen. This month we are considering God’s way of connecting/ reconnecting. Scripture shows that connection and reconnection or reconciliation are a value and practice of God and because God joined us to Christ and the work of God in our baptisms part of our

16th Sunday after Pentecost Genesis 50:15-21 Psalm 103:1-13 Romans 14:1-12 Matthew 18:21-35 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one whose way is mercy. Amen This year we are paying special attention to God’s Way, how God does things, we’re paying attention to this because as people of faith we want to join in with what God is doing. This month, through our scriptures we see that God’s way is one of connection and reconne

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