Category: Sermons

For the season of Lent, we have been focusing on the spiritual discipline of listening, listening to God for direction on our lives and the future of our church, listening to one another, to the concerns, fears, and passions which we have. This morning, I want us to listen carefully to the life of Judas. [...]

To help me embrace this text from today’s lectionary, I have turned to both Western and Eastern psychology. I find applicable insights from both of them.   Buddhist psychology, which is 2500 years old, speaks of attachment as a negative. There are three Buddhist poisons: attachment, aversion, and ignorance. Attachment is synonymous with desire, greed, [...]

Today's gospel lesson is about a fox let loose in the henhouse. And if you have ever owned hens, then you know how much damage a loose fox can do. The fox is the tetrarch of Galilee and son of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas. At several points throughout this Gospel, Luke inserts reminders of [...]

A few weeks ago, Sheldon Wolin passed away. For those unfamiliar, Wolin was a political theorist who is best known for starting the Berkeley School of political theory. He mentored many of the most prominent teachers of political theory today such as Cornell West and Wendy Brown. And out of all the theologians, all the [...]

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. In a few moments, these words will be spoken over you as I ash your foreheads or your hands. Tonight, I have one question for us: What might it mean for us to receive these words as a blessing, as a word from God meant [...]

We like to think of God calling us as something intimate, as something gentle, as something comforting. We have all seen the Hallmark cards with God's words to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” We long for these words of consolation to [...]

The forces of nature regularly remind us of the danger of water. In the past decade or so, we have seen major tsunamis devastate India, Indonesia, Sir Lanka, and Japan. Closer to home, we have faced two of the most damaging hurricanes in modern human history. The people of Louisiana and New England know quite [...]