Happy Father's Day!!!

From one father to my fellow father's. Have a great day and remember your calling -- love your wife and your children. Now I go to preach and then eat pie.

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Salt and Light -- A Sermon for Pentecost 24B (Matthew 5)

Matthew 5:13-16 Our stewardship theme this year asks the question: What Shall We Bring? The sermon text for next Sunday is Micah 6:8, which asks this very question: “What does the Lord require?” As we think about these questions, I can share this word from the introductory material that guides our season: “Stewardship is about more than money. It is a whole life response to the abundant generosity of God.” Of course, money is part of the equation, but stewardship is about more than that, as we see in today’s scripture. The word of the Lord for us today comes from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is sitting on a hillside, somewhere in Galilee. He’s delivering what we call the Sermon on the Mount. When we hear these words about Salt and Light, it’s good to know that Jesus has just finished revealing the Beatitudes. He tells the people what it means to be blessed. There are different blessings accorded to different kinds of people, ranging from the poor to the peacemakers.

The Bread of Life -- A Sermon for World Communion Sunday

John 6:41-51 Each Sunday Tim Morehouse mixes up some bread, which he hands to me at the end of the service so I can hand it off to a visitor. It’s always hot bread, so with a little butter or without butter if that’s your choice, one can make a meal of it on the drive home! It’s offered as a sign of welcome and hospitality. While bread is a useful sign of hospitality, it’s also a sign of something much deeper. Bread is often referred to as the staff of life. Along with water, bread is the foundation of human existence, which is perhaps what Mahatma Gandhi meant when he said: “There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” This physical hunger is so powerful that it must be tended to if we’re to be open to anything else in life. Remember how the people of Israel complained to Moses about the prospect of starving in the wilderness. Slavery in Egypt was bad, but they wondered whether freedom was worth

Standing Firm

Isaiah 50:4-9a "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." That’s what you’re supposed to say when bullies pick on you and call you names. It would be nice, if names didn’t hurt, but from experience I can say – it’s not true. Names do hurt. Indeed, we’ve discovered that verbal abuse can be just as damaging to a child as physical abuse. James understood this to be true long before the psychologists caught on. He called the tongue a "restless evil, full of deadly poison." Indeed, the same tongue that we use to sing praises to God, we also use to curse those "who are made in the likeness of God." (James 3:1-12). Today we celebrate Palm Sunday, and as we wave our palm branches and triumphantly process into church the excitement begins to build. Yes, this is a time to shout out words of praise and give thanks for God’s gift of deliverance. Oh, if things would just stay like that, but if you know the story, you know that t

Words of Welcome

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