Friday, July 24, 2015

Sermon: "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish", John 6:1-21 (July 26, 2015)

7/26/15

This summer, I’ve been rereading some of the books that I loved as a kid. Several of these are obscure stories that I had eagerly purchased at my school’s Scholastic Book Fair, bookworm that I was, which had been unearthed during my dad’s summer purging of his house. Others are “classics” that almost everyone has read at some point or another: Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings. I was a voracious reader as a kid, so this has been no small project.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Sermon: "Faith Healing", Mark 5:21-43 (June 28, 2015)

6/28/15

She’s tired. Not just tired, but physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. Spent. She’s done absolutely everything that it’s within her power to do: sought the obscure wisdom of every healer, the experimental treatments of every physician, the urgent prayers of every priest, and yet what does she have to show for it? An empty moneybag and still-deteriorating health. And less hope than she had to begin with.

Sermon: "Holy Spirit 101", Acts 2:1-21 (May 24, 2015)

5/24/15

One of the primary reasons that I love getting to work with kids and youth is that it gives me the opportunity to learn new things all the time. Well, not necessarily “new” as in “I’ve never thought of that before”; I mean new as in completely reexamining old ideas that I’d long assumed I understand. This is one of the coolest things about being a Pastor. Lifelong spiritual formation is so central to who we need to be as Christians, and kids have a way of reminding you that there’s always more to learn. I suspect that this is why so many people are nervous about teaching Church School for the first time, and also why so many people, once they’ve actually overcome these fears, are profoundly glad that they did. Anyway, I am deeply grateful for the young people—both here and at the churches I’ve worked at in the past—who have helped me remember that my role as rabbi, teacher, begins with the posture of a student.