Sermon: “Factory Reset”, Isaiah 6 (November 17, 2024)

A few weeks ago, I brought my work computer home for Nick to take a look at. It’d been running sluggishly for a while, but it was getting to where I wasn’t even able to get my work done anymore. At some point, its performance had gone from being an annoying inconvenience to being an active hindrance. I'd tried all the tricks I knew to help speed it up a bit – largely by uninstalling programs and deleting unused files – but nothing had made even the slightest bit of difference. So, I decided that it was time to bring in my own personal in-house expert. I didn't love what he had to tell me, though. “I have some newer parts I can install,” he explained, “but even then, the bulk of the problem is probably being caused by stuff that’s already in there and hard to get rid of. Your best chance of fixing it is to do a factory reset.”

Liturgy: Isaiah 6 (November 17, 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 #1, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!” 

Hymn GTG #354, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory” 

Sermon: “The ABCs of Boone: We Are…”, Isaiah 11:1-3, 5-9 (September 8, 2024)

Join us as we unveil Boone's new mission statement...

TO BE CONTINUED...

This week, we’re beginning a sermon series in which we unveil our brand-new mission statement. Our old mission statement was wonderful, but churches should revise their mission statement at least every five years – we are, after all, a Church “reformed and always reforming”. So much has changed for us even just since COVID that it’s time for us to reimagine how we present ourselves to the world. So, after much discussion, deliberation, and discernment, Session voted to adopt this new statement, which I’ve lovingly nicknamed “the ABCs of Boone”.

The first part of the mission statement, the “A” that we’ll talk about today, is about who we ARE. As Session began working to articulate how this community has evolved since the split, calling a new pastor, and dealing with COVID, one obvious theme kept coming up again and again: “We are a safe space for all: where you can be exactly who God created you to be – Presbyterian or not!” This goes beyond our welcome of our LGBT+ siblings (although that’s certainly an important part of it). Boone is a place where you’re safe to be open about your mental health struggles, to share your doubts about God, to disagree with the pastor - even to confess that you don’t consider yourself Presbyterian! (You can decide for yourself which of those things is the most “scandalous”.) To be clear, this doesn’t mean that everyone will feel like they BELONG here (like those, for example, who were unwilling to wear a mask during COVID) but THEY will always be the ones to decide that, not us, and until then, we try to make sure that they feel SAFE in our midst.

This is a guiding principle for Boone because it’s a guiding principle of scripture. There are plenty of passages I could have chosen to illustrate this – the woman accused of adultery, for example, or Psalm 23, or the prodigal son – but I chose this passage from Isaiah. I chose it, because it reminds us why we, the Church, exist. Not just to be kind or merciful or charitable in isolated moments, but to bring about the very kindom of God here and now and always. And Isaiah 11 insists that that kindom is not one of conformity and dominion, but of peace and safety, where no harm or destruction occurs anywhere that belongs to God. Safety for all creation is the primary characteristic of God’s kindom, and so safety is one of the values that we cherish most deeply here in this community - whether physical, emotional, or spiritual in nature.

Notice what this passage DOESN’T say. It doesn’t say that the goat will no longer be a goat, and the lion will no longer be a lion. It doesn’t say that they’ll be converted into something that they weren’t before. Too frequently, modern Christians have become gatekeepers, more concerned with enforcing their rules and changing others to fit their mold. But in God’s kindom, the goat doesn’t need to match the leopard’s ferocity; the lion doesn’t need to turn INTO an ox in order to eat straw like an ox. The only things that change are the behaviors that keep them from living together in harmony. THIS is the reflection of the kindom that we want to be – a place where all can coexist in their differences in peace. Where all are safe to be THEMSELVES.

Now, of course, safety isn’t something that just happens, and it isn’t something that can just be assumed. Vulnerable people will never feel safe until a space is PROVEN to be safe. No lamb will lie down with a wolf until the wolf has convincingly demonstrated that it’s not a threat (and as little Red Riding Hood can tell you, a wolf’s words alone aren’t good enough). To a certain extent, then, our claim of being a safe space for all is more of an aspirational commitment than a perfect descriptor. We will always have to work to prove that we are what we say we are.

Fortunately, Scripture has us covered on that front, too – although we might have to read this passage through a new lens to realize it. We most often encounter Isaiah 11 at Christmas because Christians have historically read it as a “prediction” or prophesy of Jesus’ birth: Jesus, the root of Jesse, will come to live among us, he’ll fix everything, and then everyone will get along perfectly. If you happen to look around and notice that herbivores and carnivores still aren’t mingling socially even though Jesus HAS come, well, then that just means that this passage must be referring to the RETURN of Christ. Zootopia is just waiting for the SECOND coming.

But what if, rather than placing all our hope for God’s kindom on some unknown date in the future, on an event completely outside of our control, we instead read verses 1-5 as being about each of US? What if WE are the shoot of Jesse, WE are the branch sprouting from his roots. If we read the passage in this way, then it means that our efforts to be guided by God’s spirit – a spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength, of knowledge and reverence – will be the thing that leads directly to this kindom of peace. If we decide not to judge by appearances nor to decide by hearsay, then WE can create the holy mountain where none will be harmed or destroyed. What if it’s up to US?

My kindred in Christ, I’m telling you that it IS up to us. This is what we have to be in order to live out the mission that we’ve claimed. We have to actively pursue these things to create a world in which wolves can lie down with lambs and all of God’s beloved children are safe – and KNOW they’re safe – from any sort of harm. And if we are truly committed to living as ones who will bring about the kindom, as our new mission statement suggests, then we need to cultivate a sense of safety not just in the space we inhabit on Sunday mornings, but in our whole lives. WE need to be safe spaces ourselves, so that the kindom described in Isaiah 11 can spread beyond our self-contained islands of sanctuary into our streets, our grocery stores, our nightclubs, and our schools.

There is still a tragically long road standing between us and this peaceable kindom. The world remains an unsafe place for far too many people in far too many ways. I didn’t set out to discuss anything controversial in this sermon, but this past Wednesday, there was yet another terrible incidence of gun violence at a school, where four people died and nine others were injured. Of all people in all possible places, children should be able to feel safe at school. And yet, that’s not the world that we’ve created for them; that’s not the kingdom we’ve made for ourselves.

Many people have responded to this tragedy by saying, “It could have been worse.” And it could have. The staff were almost immediately able to alert security thanks to special new high-tech IDs, which undoubtedly saved lives. The classroom doors at Apalachee High School automatically locked, significantly restricting the shooter’s movements. And school resource officers responded quickly and heroically.[1] But this is not safety. How many of that school’s students do you think will feel safe when they return to school next week? How many more security systems, how many more locked doors, how many more officers will it take? This should not be a fact of life. This is not what the kindom of God looks like.

Our nation is not willing to make the same commitment to collective safety that Isaiah 11 demands. Which is, of course, its right – we are NOT, after all, a Judeo-Christian nation, nor should we seek to be. But if those of us here today take seriously our desire to be a safe space for everyone, if we really believe in the inevitability of God’s kindom, if we really, truly consider Scripture to be an authority on our lives, then we cannot let this stand. We cannot let our nation’s priorities go unquestioned. Because we, the Church, exist not just to be kind or merciful or charitable in isolated moments, but to bring about the very kindom of God, a kindom of peace and safety for all, here and now and always.

It's relatively easy to PROCLAIM ourselves a safe space for everyone – especially when our idea of safety only extends as far as “no harassment” or “no judgement”. These are important aspects of it, but they only scratch the surface. Existing as a truly safe space for others is not, and will never be, easy. It requires profound strength – which is the last thing that the Isaiah passage has to teach us.

Just before the depiction of the Peaceable Kingdom begins in verse 6, Isaiah describes one last quality of the one who can bring it about: “Righteousness will be the belt around [their] hips, and faithfulness the belt around [their] waist.” But this isn’t a belt as we might picture it. The Hebrew word, *aizor*, is more accurately described as a “waist cloth” or a “girdle”. In biblical times, it was used to tie up one’s robes in preparation for a feat requiring great strength and exertion, whether at work or in battle[2] (this is, of course, where the term “gird your loins” comes from).

When Isaiah tells us that the root of Jesse wears an *aizor*, he’s making it clear that this figure has a difficult task ahead. But the strength that THIS task requires isn’t the strength of power or dominance as an *aizor* would normally suggest. It is the strength righteousness and faithfulness that will ultimately lead to God’s kindom. It’s the strength of being of one mind with God that will create a safe place for all.

So, friends, as we commit to being a place of safety – a glimpse of the peaceable kingdom for all – let us gird our hearts with an *aizor* of righteousness and one of faithfulness, for the road we face is long and difficult. Our mission doesn’t stop at the door of this building; we must carry this sense of sanctuary out with us into the world. We must keep working to make Caldwell a safe space for all, and then Idaho, and then the Mountain West, and onward and outward and upward until there’s not a single person left who would find it unusual for a calf and young lion to share a meal together. Until there’s not a single person left who feels unsafe anywhere in God’s whole creation.

This is an enormous task – one that righteousness and faithfulness may not feel sufficient to meet, even when supplemented with a spirit of wisdom and strength and knowledge. But it’s the task that our faith calls us to, the one that we’ve been unable to abandon even during the most challenging chapters in this community’s life. It is, after all, who we are. And God willing, for the sake of those who have gone before us and of those who will come after, it is who we always will be. Thanks be to God for this clarity of mission: may we rise to meet the challenge. Amen.

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[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/us/georgia-shooting-apalachee-security-lockdown-badges.html

[2] https://ohr.edu/7281 and https://biblehub.com/hebrew/232.htm

Liturgy: Isaiah 11:1-3, 5-9 (September 8, 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 #309, “Come, Great God of All the Ages”
Hymn GTG #754, “Help Us Accept Each Other”

Hymn GTG #311, “Here, O Lord, Your Servants Gather”

Sermon: “The X(mas) Files: WHAT?", Isaiah 61:1-4/Luke 4:16-30 (December 10, 2023)

This week, we continue our investigation into the familiar prophecies and stories that inform our understanding of Christmas. If we want our faith and relationship with God to continue to grow throughout our lives, we have to be willing to question what we think we know and to be prepared to discover things we hadn’t considered before. Last week, on the first Sunday of Advent, we asked our first question, “Who?”, and we realized that it’s less important for us to ask WHO the Messiah is than it is to ask who WE are treating as our Messiah. Now, let’s put on our detective hats once again to explore the “What?” of the Christmas story: what is it that the Messiah has been sent to do, or as I like to call it, “The Jesus Agenda”.

Liturgy, Advent 2: The X(mas) Files: WHAT?, Isaiah 61:1-4/Luke 4:16-30 (December 10, 2023)

*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 #86, “The People Who Walked in Darkness”
Hymn GTG #90, “Wait for the Lord"
Hymn GTG #852, “When the Lord Redeems the Very Least”

Hymn GTG #772, “Live Into Hope”

Liturgy, Advent 1: The X(Mas) Files: WHO?; Isaiah 40:1-5, Luke 3:2-9, 15-16 (December 3, 2023)

*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 #88, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (vv. 1, 3, & 7)
Hymn GTG #95, "Prepare the Way of the Lord"
Hymn GTG #145, “What Child Is This?”

Sermon: “God’s Hygge”, Isaiah 40:1-11 (June 18, 2023)

Do you remember, about six or seven years back, when the whole world suddenly seemed to become obsessed with the concept of hygge? Hygge, spelled H-Y-G-G-E, is a Scandinavian term that describes “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.”[1] This concept has been around in Danish writing since the turn of the 19th century and has become a major part of Danish culture and identity since then.[2] But it’s been relatively unknown outside of Scandinavia until around 2016, at which point we all lost our collective minds over it.

Hygge decorations, hygge clothing, hygge magazine articles, hygge vacations, hygge self-help books, hygge, hygge, hygge – we couldn’t get enough! The craze was so widespread that when Disney began work on turning their hit movie “Frozen” into a stage musical, they wrote an entire song all about hygge and stuck it right at the top of the second act. It describes hygge with the sort of catchy rhymes that you’d expect from a Disney musical: “Hygge means comf’table/hygge means cozy/hygge means sitting by the fire with your cheeks all rosy.” In order to drive the point all the way home, the lyrics go on to specify things that AREN’T hygge: finding a spider in your shoe? Not hygge. Having an annoying thing to do? Not hygge. Complete with a dance break and kick line, this descriptive song embodies the moment of cultural celebrity that hygge enjoyed at the time.

Nobody knows exactly why hygge took off the way it did, but there are theories. Some people believe that our preoccupation with hygge emerged out of the cultural and political chaos that was 2016. Our memories of that time may be a bit fuzzy seven years down the road, but 2016 was the year that both Brazil and South Korea impeached their presidents, North Korea conducted not one, but TWO nuclear tests, and Britain voted to leave the European Union. It also happened to be the year of the most contentious and divisive election season in U.S. history. The world was in turmoil, and nothing seemed certain. The theory goes that, in times of such uncertainty, insecurity, and anxiety, human beings gravitate towards anything that can quickly provide tangible comfort. We wanted to forget all the terrible things that were happening around us and go into hibernation mode. Someone realized that Scandinavians seemed to have comfort down to a fine art, so we collectively embraced hygge as a form of escapism.

If hygge had existed during biblical times, it probably would have sounded attractive to the former citizens of Judah, too. Right up until the very end of chapter 39, Isaiah has been proclaiming dire warnings to the southern Jewish kingdom about the chaos that lay in store for them. These prophecies seem to have finally been fulfilled somewhere between the last verse of chapter 39 and the first verse of 40 – suddenly, instead of warnings, Isaiah’s prophecies are offering comfort and compassion. What happened is that the people have been conquered by the Babylonians and find themselves in exile. They finally realize that they aren’t invincible after all, that their earthly kingdom ISN’T eternal. They can finally see that their hubris has been an enormously consequential mistake. Their lives have been turned completely upside down.

The Lord, being a just but merciful god, sees all this. So God offers comfort through Isaiah in the wake of the kingdom’s fall. This message must have come as an enormous relief. The people in exile probably clung to the idea of comfort like we clung to the idea of hygge during the traumatic events of 2016. They would have heard the words, “Comfort, comfort my people!” as reassurance that their suffering would be short-lived. “Don’t worry; everything’s going to be fine.” They would have heard “Proclaim to her that her penalty has been paid,” as a promise that the hard parts are over. “Any day now, the Babylonians will leave, and you’ll be able to go back home.” They were probably hoping – maybe even assuming – that God would take them out of the nightmare that had come to pass and restore them to their former glory.

The people looked to God for a way out just as we turned to hygge for escape. But when we did this, we were making some bold assumptions about how comfort actually works. We wanted it to displace our feelings of uneasiness completely, so we tried to fill our lives with hygge until there was no room left for anything else. We tried to turn hygge into something that we could commodify, something we could control. We tried to make every day feel like a vacation at a ski lodge. In consuming all things hygge, we were trying to create a permanent state of comfort. But it turns out that comfort as a way of life? Not actually hygge.

In a part of the world that’s cold, dark, and rainy for much of the year, hygge arose as a way to cope with that reality, not to shut it out. [3] It’s not a lifestyle; it’s a feeling that you carry within you like a candle to light your way in the dark. Nobody can live their entire lives in a ski lodge, but we CAN find ways to make the winters of our lives more bearable. Ultimately, hygge can’t change anything but your perspective. It doesn’t make life comfortable – it offers comfort in the midst of life’s struggles.

God is offering the people in Isaiah 40 this same kind of comfort. God’s version of hygge is about being able to find comfort in faith even when things look bleak. It’s meant to help them get through the difficulties still to come. No matter how much the people may want God’s hygge to manifest as immediate, feel-good solutions to their problems, that’s not the kind of comfort that God is offering here. Avoiding the consequences of their past actions? Not hygge – the Babylonian conquest may be over, but the people’s exile has just begun. Ignoring their sin? Not hygge – the people still have to address the fact that their faith is as capricious as a flower that blooms one day and wilts the next. Neglecting their responsibilities in favor of an untroubled life? Not hygge – even in exile, God’s people still have to practice their faith and prepare the way of the Lord in a fallen world. But finding comfort in God’s presence in the midst of all these things? Now THAT’S hygge.

It’s natural for us to WANT to feel happy all the time. And there’s nothing wrong with praying for things like more resources, a vacation, help with our responsibilities, relief from stress, a fresh start, or anything else that would make our lives easier. After all, Jesus himself prayed that the cup of suffering be taken from him in Gethsemane.[4] But the key part of HIS prayer is what came next: “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” We pray those exact same words every single week, but how often do we think about what they really mean? When we pray for comfort, are we really asking for the divine presence to help us face the dark of night and the cold of winter in our lives? Or are we praying for OUR version of hygge, a life completely absent of pain and suffering? Whose will are we REALLY praying for?

Life is hard. There’s no getting around that. But the struggles aren’t all there is. There’s also God. There’s also community. There’s also the promise of a future where heaven will be found on earth, and the promise that all creation will get to take part. These things are the hygge that we should cling to, like a chunky sweater or a cozy blanket, to get us through the winters of life. Expecting God to take all your troubles away? Not hygge. But trusting God to comfort you where you are, to show you a way forward, and to be with you through it all? Definitely hygge.

I haven’t seen much buzz about hygge in recent years. Do you think it’s because life has gotten easier since 2016? I’ll answer for you: nope. Definitely not. But maybe, just maybe, it’s because we’ve stopped trying to hide from it and we’ve started trying to live through it. Or at least because we’ve come to realize that we CAN’T hide from it. Either way, I think we all can agree that a scented candle and a mug of hot cocoa will never be able to change trauma, hardship, grief, loss, or any other kind of suffering into something that it’s not.

The good news is that hygge never was in that candle or that cocoa – it’s the feeling of comfort, deep within you, that helps you to get through the difficult parts of life. And we’ve got something even BETTER than hygge. We’ve got God’s hygge, a promise that we are not alone, no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done, no matter what’s in store for us. That includes you. Yes, you. No conditions. No exceptions. And that’s a kind of hygge more comforting than even the bulkiest sweater could ever be. (And it’s far less itchy.) Carry this gift with you and share it with everyone you meet. There’s plenty of God’s hygge to go around. Amen.

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[1] Dictionary.com, “Hygge”.
[2] https://denmark.dk/people-and-culture/hygge.
[3] https://mashable.com/article/hygge-scandinavian-lifestyle-trend.
[4] Matthew 26:39, Luke 22:42.

Liturgy: Third Sunday after Pentecost - Isaiah 40:1-11 (June 18, 2023)

*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.*

*Call to Worship (based on Isaiah 40:9-10)

Leader: O people, raise your voices and shout,
People: “Here is our God!”

Sermon: “Everything Old is New (and Old)”, Isaiah 9:1-7 (June 11, 2023)

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This morning, we’re continuing our mini sermon series on Isaiah. Last week we talked about Isaiah’s call to prophecy, and over the next three weeks, we’ll be exploring one prophecy from each of the major divisions of the book: the section written before the Babylonian exile, the section written after the southern kingdom of Judah had fallen, and the section written in anticipation of Israel’s eventual restoration.

Liturgy: Second Sunday after Pentecost - Isaiah 9:1-7 (June 11, 2023)

*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.*

*Call to Worship (based on Isaiah 9:2)

Leader: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
People: On those living in a pitch-dark land, light has dawned.

Sermon: "I Don't Belong Here", Isaiah 6:1-8 (June 4, 2023)

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The Narrative Lectionary takes a break over the summer, but it offers suggestions of scripture to take a closer look at, parts of the Bible that are glossed over or skipped entirely during the regular cycle. So, during the month of June, we’ll be looking at Isaiah, a book that’s long been called “the Fifth Gospel” in Christian circles because of the large number of messianic references contained within its pages.

Liturgy: First Sunday after Pentecost - Isaiah 6:1-8 (June 4, 2023)

*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.*

*Call to Worship (based on Isaiah 6:3-4)

Leader: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces!
People: All the earth is filled with God’s glory!

Liturgy: Swords Into Plowshares - Isaiah 1:10-20; 2:1-5 (November 20, 2022)

*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.*

Call to Worship

Leader: A day will come when all nations will say,
People: “Come, let us go up to the Lord’s Mountain, so that he may teach us his ways.”

Sermon: “A War By Any Other Name”, Isaiah 1:10-20; 2:1-5 (November 20, 2022 - Reign of Christ Sunday)

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I’m going start today’s sermon with a confession and a story. The confession is that the scripture readings we just heard were mostly not what the Narrative Lectionary assigned for today. The bulk of today’s assigned readings (which would have been from Isaiah 36 and 37, in case you want to look it up later) recount a wartime exchange between the kings of Assyria and Judah (the southern kingdom of Israel). But half of the words in these passages are difficult-to-pronounce names, and I found it challenging to keep all the characters, their locations, and the metaphors straight. So instead of forcing the liturgist to suffer through all of this, I’ll just summarize it for you myself instead. Storytime!

Sermon: “What Sabbath Actually Is”, Isaiah 58:5-7, 13-14/Luke 13:10-17 (August 21, 2022)

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Today, we’re getting not only a lesson in theology, but in internet culture, as well! This is a meme format that first emerged in 2012 but seems to have had a slight resurgence over the past couple of years.[1] The idea of the meme is to humorously portray a profession by visually depicting how different people or groups view it through six different images. The default categories are usually something along the lines of “What my friends think I do/what my parents think I do/what society thinks I do/what I think I do/and what clients or customers think I do”. It almost always ends with “What I actually do”, which often serves as a punchline of sorts. For example, in a version about teachers, the last frame might be a desk covered in paperwork; in one about a customer service specialist, a bottle of aspirin; in one about a nurse, a comically large mug of coffee. (I highly encourage you to google your own profession or hobby; odds are there’s already at least one version of this meme already in circulation.)

Sermon: “Undefeated”, Isaiah 6:1-8/Luke 5:1-11 (February 6, 2022)

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Human beings are extremely competitive in nature. I suspect this originated as a survival instinct: in our hunter-gatherer days, those who were most skilled at foraging survived, while those who were less so didn’t. The development of agrarian societies meant that our survival no longer depended as heavily on competition, yet our rivalries persisted—instead of struggling over food, shelter, or mates, we competed for land, status, and power. In more modern times, we’ve found newer, more abstract reasons to compete: when resource allotment isn’t in question, we’ve been known to start wars over competing values and principles.

Guest Sermon: "The Curious Case of the Descending Tricolon Crescendo", Isaiah 55:10-13/Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (August 15, 2021)

Preached by the Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett:

I only had to participate in the school science fair once.

It was required of all sixth-graders, optional after that. I chose for my project what has to be one of the most common experiments out there, right alongside the standard baking soda volcano: I planted seeds in different kinds of soil to test how they grew.

One of my pots had regular soil in it. Into one I mixed the kind of things you put into compost—banana peels, mostly. The third I added trash to—bits of Styrofoam and candy wrappers. I was pretty sure that that the trash plants wouldn’t grow, and the regular soil ones would, and the compost ones would do the best.

Between Ms. Frizzle and Bill Nye, I thought I understood the basics of horticulture.

Sermon: “Beyond Our Ken; Within Our ‘Can’”, Isaiah 6:1-8/John 1:1-5, 9-14 (May 30, 2021--Trinity Sunday)

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Today is what’s affectionately known by many preachers as “Heresy Sunday”. Devoting a week’s worship to the Holy Trinity SEEMS like a great idea in principle, but if you’ve ever attempted to explain the Trinity to anyone unfamiliar with the doctrine, you can understand why this is actually one of the most challenging Sundays of the year to preach. The Trinity is such a strange concept—three equal and unified persons of the same substance contained within a single God—that humanity has yet to discover an analogy that doesn’t accidentally slip into heresy in one way or another.

Sermon: "Make A Joyful Noise: Go, Tell It on the Mountain", Isaiah 55:10-13 (July 12, 2020)

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Do you all remember what it’s like applying to jobs? I sure do. Personally, I didn’t mind the ones that gave you an actual application form too much, but I HATED the ones that required a resume. It’s not that I had a problem sharing my employment history with potential employers (although early on, it was hard to make three years of babysitting fill up an entire page). No, what I hated about it was the fact that submitting a resume also requires writing a cover letter. Did you ever have to write one? Did you struggle with them as much as I did? As I understand it, a cover letter serves several purposes: it’s primarily a matter of etiquette, thanking the employer for their time and consideration, but it’s also an opportunity to grab the employer’s attention. A good cover letter hits the highlights of your job history and connects the dots as to why you’d be a good fit for the position. It summarizes you as an employee in a way that compels the employer to want to know more. It’s basically the Cliffsnotes of your resume.