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Pentecost 2020

Good Morning. It is good to be back with you in person this morning and I hope being Pentecost, the day we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church, is a good sign that this will be for you a Spirit-filled new beginning as well. I could spend thisContinue reading “Pentecost 2020”

7 Easter 2020

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:12 A couple of weeks ago, my sermon dealt with perspective. We all like to think that whatever difficulties we are facing are unique and worse thanContinue reading “7 Easter 2020”

6 Easter 2020

Have you ever noticed that scripture frequently draws our attention to the absolute necessities of life and connects us to the necessities of the spiritual life? Perhaps one of the reasons we fail to appreciate the importance of these spiritual necessities is that we have grown so accustomed to having the physical necessities that weContinue reading “6 Easter 2020”

5 Easter 2020

I have always been both fascinated by and frustrated by optical illusion pictures. As a child I can remember the Magic Eye pictures that looked like repetitive patterns until you looked at it just the right way and then you could see dolphins swimming or some such design. Anamorphosis is an art technique that makesContinue reading “5 Easter 2020”

4 Easter 2020

What does it mean to be the church in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of the post-Christian era, in a global community, but a highly divided and polarized country? What does it mean to be the Church today? We get three glimpses this morning of what it meant to be the churchContinue reading “4 Easter 2020”

3 Easter 2020

Our current culture tends to encourage us to leave the past behind us and to live in the present moment. For people that have a tendency to get bogged down by prior mistakes there is a certain amount of good advice in that, but in general, if we don’t ever look back, 1) we failContinue reading “3 Easter 2020”

2nd Sunday after Easter 2020

Labels are a tricky thing. When I go to the grocery store, I want my food to be labeled clearly and accurately. For people with food sensitivities, this can be a life or death matter, but when we label people, we tend to put emphasis on something that is often irrelevant to the current situationContinue reading “2nd Sunday after Easter 2020”

Easter Vigil 2020

An interesting difference between first century Jewish culture and 21st century Americans is our concept of the day. In the story of the creation we are told “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” (Genesis 1:5b). In the Jewish culture, even today for those who strictly observe the Sabbath, the newContinue reading “Easter Vigil 2020”