Sermon: “The Art of ReGifting: RECEIVE”, Luke 1:26-38 (November 30, 2025)

In U.S.American culture, once we make it to the other side of Thanksgiving, our brains almost automatically shift towards preparing for Christmas, don’t they? In the Church, of course, we focus on preparing our hearts and spirits: getting ourselves in the right mindset to welcome Jesus to the world. At home, your preparation might look like decorating or baking; at work, it may take the form of frantic efforts to get things wrapped up before you leave for vacation. But no matter where you are or what you’re doing, I’d be willing to bet that your Christmas preparation involves gifts in one way or another.

Sermon: "Recipe for Repentance: Ashes and Crumbs", Psalm 51 (selected verses) (February 17, 2021--Ash Wednesday)

(This is the Ash Wednesday sermon for our Lenten Series, "Recipe for Repentance". The full worship service can be found here.)

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“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your faithful love! Wipe away my wrongdoings according to your great compassion! Wash me completely clean of my guilt; purify me from my sin! Because I know my wrongdoings, my sin is always right in front of me. Yes, you want truth in the most hidden places; you teach me wisdom in the most secret space.” (Psalm 51:1-3, 6) 

On Ash Wednesday, Christians all over the world take ashes onto our bodies in remembrance of our mortality and need for repentance. It’s a reminder that, no matter how clean we feel, no matter how much we think we’ve “got it all together,” we are always at God’s mercy. We’re always subject to the death and decay of our sin. While we can easily wipe away the ashes on our foreheads, our sin is far more difficult to remove. We need to repent before we can be at one with the Lord.

Sermon: “Imago Dei: In the Image of God’s Spirit”, Isaiah 11:1-10/Matthew 3:1-11 (December 1, 2019)

(Week 1 in our Advent series on how we reflect God's Image)

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It’s the beginning of a new liturgical year and Advent is upon us, as you can tell by the beautiful paraments that once again adorn our worship space. This past week, I joked on Facebook that we should start calling these purple ornamentations “prepare-aments”, since purple is the color of the liturgical seasons of preparation. In all seriousness, though, it’s important for us to remember the preparatory aspect of Advent. In the context of worship, we usually talk about it in terms of preparing for the arrival of Emmanuel, God-With-Us, the Messiah…but what does that really mean? What does it entail? Certainly, our preparation doesn’t begin and end with purple paraments (excuse me; prepare-aments) in the sanctuary and bright, colored lights hung outside our homes. This sort of preparation is fun, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t accomplish anything particularly meaningful. I mean, it’s meaningful to us individually—I’m a huge fan of traditions and the feelings they evoke—but aside from providing the “warm fuzzies”, it doesn’t actually really do much, aside from making the spaces around us look pleasant.

Sermon: "Ready for Use", Isaiah 40:3-8/Luke 8:5-8, 11-15 (February 14, 2016)

2/14/16

(Video of this sermon)

(This sermon is the first in a Lenten series on the elements of worship: Preparing, Confessing, Sacramental Community, Proclaiming, and Responding)

The other day, I was in my office with Elizabeth and Meredith Kukla, who were admiring my collection of stoles, when I decided to use it as a teaching moment. Every week, the Church school teachers remind the class of the liturgical season, so I wanted to see how much the girls remembered about the liturgical colors. They hollered that green was for ordinary time, almost before I got the question out, and they remembered that purple was for Advent—I was impressed they’d clearly been paying attention so far this year—but they struggled a little bit when I challenged them to tell me the other season that uses purple (I’m sure that they would have had a much quicker answer if I had asked them after class today). To help them remember in the future, I told them that Purple is the color of Preparation for our biggest holidays (and yes, you’re allowed to use that pneumonic device to remind yourself, too). Preparation…such an important aspect of Lent to remember, and yet, this is far from the only time that we’re called to the important work of preparing.