Biblical Womanhood

Preached at First Congregational Church, Kalamazoo on April 29, 2018. You can listen to the recording here. Text: John 20:11-18 My nine year old daughter attends many Sundays at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, since my spouse attends there. Her Faith Formation director there is a good friend of mine and has shared with me a…

How will we sing…? (Sermon for 4-21-13)

the Scripture text is Revelation 7:9-17 A tribe of nomads marks a place where God was made known to them. They gather large stones and stack them carefully on top of each other—a painstaking process that results in a kind of tower—a mound. A mark. Every time they pass by it, for generations, they retell…

Feed My Sheep (Sermon for April 14th, 2013)

sermon text is John 21:1-19 There was an article in the LA Times, recently, that circulated around the internet pretty quickly. The authors share a story from when one of them was in the hospital after surgery related to breast cancer. One of her colleagues felt a strong need to visit her in the hospital,…

Proclaim! (A Sermon for April 7, 2013)

Sermon text: John 20:11-18 To start us out this morning, I’m going to say a phrase—a phrase that describes an activity—and I want you to visualize it. Ready? “Proclaim the gospel for the salvation of humankind” What picture came to mind for you? How many of you pictured a TV preacher, or someone like Billy…

Alive–For What? (A Sermon for Easter, 2013)

This week I watched a video where a well-known young-adult novelist, John Green, made the case that most of us—most people—live our lives in a kind of functional nihilism. Now, I’ll admit, I had to go look up nihilism to be sure I understood what he was talking about—my philosopher husband wasn’t home to consult….

Days 1 to 8, or The Week of Watching Thomas Doubt

Day 562 of following Jesus. Day 3 after he died Day 1 of a new creation That’s right—I’ve started the count over, again. Three days ago, I thought it was the end of the world—I thought I would count the rest of my life from that day—the day Jesus died, but today I’m starting over….

Neatly Wrapped Up… Or Not

How many of you are familiar with the books or the movies of the Lord of the Rings? I grew up with a father who adored the books, so as soon as the first movie came out, our whole family went out to the movie theater together. Now, because we knew the books well, we…