Sermon: "A Good Worth Boasting About", 2 Kings 5:1-14/Galatians 6:7-16 (July 3, 2022)

-----------------------------------------

What would you say is the highest good? What is the principle that’s most worth standing up for, whose pursuit leads to the best possible existence? Is it beauty? Wisdom? Maybe on this Independence Day weekend, you’d say “Freedom”. Actually, our founding fathers couldn’t decide on just one; they gave “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” all equal standing as far as the values upon which our budding nation would be built. Today, of course, there are plenty of different opinions in our country about which is truly the GREATEST good. Different groups have created entire identities around their consensus in this matter. For example, in American Christianity today, it seems that we’ve collectively agreed to “life” as being the good that we value the highest.

Sermon: "What Really Divides Us", Romans 14:1-6/Galatians 2:11-14 (September 13, 2020)

---------------------------------------------------------

As some of you know, I performed my first wedding here as the pastor of Boone Memorial Presbyterian Church yesterday. It was a joyful occasion, of course, and I was reminded once again of the blessing that this calling to ministry can be, even in the midst of a pandemic. I’ve been meeting with the newlyweds over the past several months in order to plan the ceremony and talk about their future life together, plus my own third wedding anniversary is in less than a month, so I’ve spent a lot of time recently reflecting on about the experience of joining two lives to one another. I’ve also been puzzling over how on earth anyone makes it work.

Sermon: "Lose the Recipe", 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14/Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (June 30, 2019)

---------------------------------------------------------

Do you ever wonder what scripture would look like if the early Christians hadn’t screwed up so much?

I do. I mean, Paul’s primary motivation for letter-writing was usually to correct some misconception that had been making the rounds in Christian communities, and depending on who you ask, these letters make up anywhere from 30 to almost 50 percent of the New Testament. It was always something with those blockheads: either they were excluding gentiles, or they couldn’t get along with each other, or they were pledging their allegiance to specific teachers instead of to Christ, or they were keeping other people as personal property…they just couldn’t seem to get it right, no matter how many times Paul yelled at—err, wrote to them.