Sermons

Online Worship: Wilderness Sunday—Season of Creation

Have you heard the call of the wild? Some things can only be experienced and learned in the liminal space of the wilderness, where we are not in control. “Wilderness school” is what Dan Erlander calls the Israelites’ forty years of wandering before they could enter the promised land. But even in that wilderness, God […]

Online Worship: Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

What’s wrong with this picture? So much seems to be unusual, surreal or just plain bizarre in today’s gospel reading. Jesus ignores and rejects the request of a woman in need, only to then demonstrate the change of heart that God calls all of us to undergo. What’s right in this picture is the woman’s […]

Online Worship: Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

What do you consider impossible? For you? For others? For God? Jesus walks on water in today’s gospel reading, but before you know it, Peter’s out there too, taking a few steps before he panicks and starts to sink. Was he too distracted? Too afraid? Too doubtful? Maybe it was something else. Maybe this was […]

Online Worship: Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Why did Jesus say the things he said? Why did he teach about the kingdom of heaven in the code language of parables? In today’s gospel Jesus offers everyday images that reveal to us the reign of God: a tree that becomes a sheltering home, yeast that penetrates and expands, a treasured pearl, a net […]

Online Worship: Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

It is an age-old question: why is there evil in the world? In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus suggests that both grow together until the harvest. Perhaps we are more like wildflowers—some good, some bad, mostly both depending on your perspective. Having both weeds and wheat within us, we humbly place […]

Online Worship: Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

God’s word is like the rain that waters the earth and brings forth vegetation. It is also like the sower who scatters seed indiscriminately. We are like the soil, ever-changing in our response, but God never gives up on us. Even from what appears to be little, dormant, or dead, God promises a harvest and […]

Online Worship: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Points are everywhere in life. Officially or unofficially, we love knowing just how well we’re doing at life and how close we are to winning. But there is a dark side to the points system: it’s exhausting, it’s dehumanizing, and it gets in the way of how God designed us to be. Jesus overturns the […]

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