Sermon: "Switching Gears", Acts 1:1-11 (May 11, 2025)

Before I get started, I want to assure you that I didn’t wear this hilarious shirt by accident, and I promise that I’ll explain it later.

I should also probably take a moment to acknowledge that it’s not, in fact, Ascension Sunday yet, even though we just read the story of Christ’s ascension a moment ago. Normally, the Church celebrates Christ’s Ascension into heaven forty days after Easter (following the timeline of the original events), and we’ve still got three weeks to go. But I figured that since I won’t be with you on June 1 and I’ve given our guest preachers carte blanche to preach on whatever they want, it was worth making sure that we touched on this important story at least once.

And if I’m being entirely honest, it also feels like an especially fitting scripture reading for today. At the risk of comparing myself too favorably to Jesus, I can only imagine that the experience of the disciples here must have been similar to the experience of a congregation watching their pastor prepare to leave on Sabbatical. Both events represent significant shifts in the community’s life; confusion, uncertainty, and even fear are all understandable reactions. Even if you’re NOT experiencing any of these emotions, it’s undeniable that the next three months will be very different from the past six years. Just as the Ascension was for the disciples, the three months that I’ll be on my Sabbatical will be a time of transition and adjustment for all of us: a time of switching gears.

Liturgy: The Ascension of Christ, Acts 1:1-11 (May 11, 2025)

   *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Hymns

Hymn GTG #297, “In Christ Called to Baptize”
Hymn GTG #383, “Standing on the Promises”

Hymn GTG #313, “Lord, Make Us More Holy”

Liturgy: Second Sunday of Easter, Acts 1:1-14 (April 7, 2024)

   *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Hymns:

Hymn GTG #234, “Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain”
Hymn GTG #388, “Come All You People”
Hymn GTG #511, “Come, Behold! The Feast of Heaven"

Sermon: “A Time to…”, Luke 24:44-53/Acts 16:23-34 (May 29, 2022)

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We all intuitively recognize the wisdom in this famous passage from Ecclesiastes [3:1-8, CEB]: “There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens: a time for giving birth and a time for dying, a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted, a time for killing and a time for healing, a time for tearing down and a time for building up, a time for crying and a time for laughing, a time for mourning and a time for dancing, a time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones, a time for embracing and a time for avoiding embraces, a time for searching and a time for losing, a time for keeping and a time for throwing away, a time for tearing and a time for repairing, a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking, a time for loving and a time for hating, a time for war and a time for peace.” The writer of Ecclesiastes probably didn’t need to include 14 separate examples to make his case, but because he did, his point is inescapable: the righteousness of every action must be considered in its context. There is a time that it is right to do one thing, and there is another time that it is right to do its exact opposite – and God is the one who can always tell us which is which.

Sermon: "This Changes Everything!" Acts 1:4-9/Ephesians 1:15-19 (May 16, 2021)

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When I first started telling people six years ago that I was moving to Idaho, I got all sorts of responses to the news. I remember one person joking that I was continuing my “I-90 ministry”—I’d begun with my theological education in Boston, continued back in my hometown of Rochester, and now was making the leap to Idaho (I-90 runs through the panhandle). According to this theory, I’ll have to retire in Washington to complete the journey.

I didn’t mind the joke at all. In fact, there was something comforting about knowing that I’d still be connected, however distantly, to the highway that I’d logged so many miles on over the years. Growing up, my family traveled I-90 to visit my grandparents in Buffalo; I made the trek between Boston and Rochester on a regular basis during the 5 years I lived in Massachusetts; I’d even occasionally hopped on I-90 for just a few miles if the traffic was bad on the other highways. Even though I was only really familiar with a relatively small stretch of the Interstate, it was still reassuring that, in the face of such a dramatic life change, I could still follow that same road to travel back home.

Sermon: "The In-Between", Exodus 18:8-9, 13-24/Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 (May 13, 2018)

5/13/18

Sermon video here.

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I’m about to preach a very different sermon than some of you may be expecting.

Today, many churches around the world are celebrating Ascension Day, the day when Christ finally “ascended” into heaven forty days after his resurrection. This is an important day for Christians as we remember the end of Jesus’ physical time on earth and his final instructions to the Apostles: to proclaim the good news to all nations. But today isn’t actually Ascension Day; that was on Thursday. With Ascension Day technically over and Pentecost not happening until next Sunday, today is something different. Today, we’re in what’s liturgically called “The In-Between.”

Well, no, that’s not true. I completely made that up. But I figured that, since it’s so often overshadowed by those other major festivals, this day deserves its own memorable moniker. Besides, it plays an important role in Eastertide. Just as it’s crucial for us to dwell in the darkness of Holy Week between the celebrations of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, we need to take a breather between the Ascension and Pentecost in order to more fully appreciate where the disciples are at this point: what I call “the in-between”.

Sermon: "God Sings the Body Electric", Song of Solomon 4:1-7/Acts 1:6-11 (May 8, 2016)

5/8/16

Sermon video here.

Every good sermon starts with a flashback to English class, right? Well, this one does, anyway: in 1855, poet Walt Whitman published “I Sing the Body Electric”, his ode to the human form. This poem celebrates the body’s magnificence in both its function and beauty. It’s an incredibly detailed work, including entire sections that are nothing more than lists of body parts—albeit, lists that manage to convey the poet’s sense of awe: “Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges…/Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails …” Over the course of its nine sections, Whitman describes the human form in exquisite detail and proclaims ALL bodies—male, female, black, white, young, old—as awe-inspiring and worthy of honor.