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

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

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

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

First Sunday in Lent Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 Psalm 32 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to bring justification and life for all, amen. Why? It’s the question that leads to other questions, especially from curious four year olds such as the one who resides with me. Why? is an important question but after the fourth or fifth or sixth why? In a row it is tempting to respond: “Tha

Ash Wednesday Joel 2:1-2, 12-*17 Psalm 51:1-17 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the source of life, amen. The call of Lent is the call to return to God. Often in this call to return we hear it urging us to acknowledge the worst of ourselves, to reform to avoid punishment from God. It doesn’t seem to be the most uplifting of messages. To be fair we hear this perspective in the

Transfiguration Sunday Exodus 24:12-18 Psalm 2 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who reveals the glory of the Lord to us and raises us up out of fear. amen Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation is his scientific and mathematical explanation for how gravity works, while even the briefest of internet searches will yield formulas and detailed explanations it can be most simply summed

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Micah 6:1-8 Psalm 15 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 Matthew 5:1-12 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who richly blesses us. Amen God begins with blessings. This is the truth that Jesus points to as he begins teaching the disciples and the crowds that have gathered around him in our gospel for today. It is a truth that may not be so apparent in their lives. Matthew tells us that after he calls

Third Sunday After Epiphany Isaiah 9:1-4 Psalm 27:1, 4-9 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Matthew 4:12-23 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who proclaims the kingdom of heaven and calls us into relationship. Amen How do we know when it’s the right time? The right time for something new, the right time to take a stand for or against something, the right time to repent, the right time to change? Is it, as some have suggested

Baptism of Our Lord Isaiah 42:1-9 Psalm 29 Acts 10:34-43 Matthew 3:13-17 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes alongside us to fulfill all righteousness, Amen. “What then are we to say about these things?” This question from Paul in Romans chapter 8(v31-39) echoed in my heart this week, not only was I spending time with the passage in preparation for Denny’s funeral but also I was, to paraphrase Karl Barth