Sermon: Palm/Passion Sunday - Year C

But for them they knew in their bones that Jesus' story had become their story, and their story had become his. They couldn't beautify the torture of the cross away, and so they didn't picture it, but they also knew something had happened in those holy days that forever transformed their lives. And so that transformation has also come to us, as his followers, too.

When we look to the cross, we know that when we are rejected, he has borne that rejection, we know that when we've failed, he has borne that failure, we know that when we've sinned, Jesus has borne that sin. We know that when we die, he has borne our death....(the whole thing here)

Bear or Sasquatch? You Decide

Tony Campolo on The Hour

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Spring

It’s spring today. Finally. I don’t know about you but this winter seemed longer than usual. It’s like two months were added on to an already long snowy season.

The time change just made things feels weird. It was cold and sunny. It’s taking me a while to adjust to having sunlight deeper into the evening this early in the year.

But hey, at least the snow has melted.

Home again

I’m back. Tired from my trip. With a stack of mail on my desk. 196 emails to answer.

Vacation over.

sigh.

On vacation.

Be good while I'm gone.

Sermon: Lent 2 - Year C

So, Jesus the “lamb of God,” is now Jesus the “hen of God.” The hen who tries to pull the chicks away from their dangerous game of trying to be foxes, knowing that the game will destroy them in the end.

And Jesus didn’t pull this image from the air. After all, I’m told that chickens can’t fly. No, Jesus went down deep to find this image of himself as a mother bird. He went to the Hebrew Scriptures. He probably remembered singing from the psalms, “Hide me under the shadow of your wings, and God will spread wings over you and keep you safe.”

Then he probably heard from Sunday school the part from the prophet Isaiah, “I will protect Jerusalem like a mother bird circling over her nest.

In confirmation class he might have learned the passage from Deuteronomy that says “like an eagle teacher her young to fly, always ready to swoop down and catch them on her back.”

So Jesus is in good company when he compares himself to a momma-bird. And as I look at it, it seems a very appropriate image.

I’m reminded of a story about...(read whole thing here)

Not that I really need it...

Beauty tips for ministers.

via CMS

Shift Happens

Sermon: Lent 1 - Year C

Do we really believe in a God like that? Do we WANT to believe in a God like that? A God who relies on truth transforming us? A God who thinks that love can change the world? A God who wants mercy to mend broken hearts?

No offense, God, but truth is too slow a process and we’ve got too many liars on the planet. A God who asks us to trust – no offense God, but you are often silent when we most need you to speak. A God who acts in love – LOVE – when we face the onslaught of basic human greed destroying the planet, the threat of violence that puts human life in danger, the hatred between peoples born of pride and the lust for power – no offense, God, what’s the point of being God if you can’t throw YOUR power around?

Also, I live in the real world. This love and trust mumbo-jumbo may sound nice on Sunday morning at church, but when I step out the front doors, people are trying to get me. They’re gonna try to take what’s rightfully mine, everything I’ve worked hard to accumulate. No offense, God, but you’re looking pretty weak.

If you listen hard, that’s...(read the whole thing here)

Animals

There's always been rumblings that KFC was more rodent than poultry, but I never thought it would come to this.

And here's this, just because it's Friday.

Ash Wednesday Sermon

It took me a while to realize what I was doing, but I noticed that after I preside over a funeral, I write something on my blog about it. And also, if it’s warm, I sometimes take my oldest daughter to the cemetery afterwards and “introduce” her to the person I just buried.

I don’t know what it is about funerals that make me more reflective. It might be the obvious. I’m face to face with someone who had died.

And it’s hard to proclaim a message of life and salvation at a funeral service without some peoples’ tears landing on you, bringing out tears of your own.

Maybe it’s because death causes me to face my own doubts. When you’re standing at the foot of an occupied casket, with family members quietly wiping their eyes, it’s hard to keep the bible’s promises of resurrection as abstract theory or weighty theological principles. It’s hard to pontificate when people are weeping. It’s difficult to spout soft religious platitudes in the midst of life and death questions

Maybe that’s why I get reflective. I find funerals to be an uncomfortable reminder that one day I will lie in that coffin, and I don’t like that scenario. I don’t like being confronted with the fact that, yes, I have come from dust, and to dust I will return.

Two years ago, I was almost killed on the Granum highway. Twice. Within the space of two minutes. It was snowing and I...(whole thing here)