Sermon: "From Scratch", 1 Kings 12:1-17 (October 29, 2023)

One of the most valuable pieces of preaching advice I ever got is, “Don’t be afraid to throw out your babies.” It doesn’t mean that children and pets should be exiled until the sermon is written (although that definitely would speed up the process significantly). What it means is that inevitably, an especially clever turn of phrase or a particularly insightful point will find its way into your sermon every so often. You will be tempted to preserve that sentence or paragraph at all costs because you like it so much; you may attempt linguistic or interpretive gymnastics in order to make it work. But if it doesn’t strengthen the point of the sermon – or worse, detracts from it – you have to be willing to cut it out. You have to be prepared to let your “baby” go completely for the sake of the message.

Sermon: "Bound By Love", Ruth 1:1-17 (October 15, 2023)

Just over a week ago, the world reacted in horror when Hamas, the so-called “Islamic Resistance Movement” within Palestine, violently and unexpectedly attacked Israel. Although this specific strike came as a surprise, it was far from an isolated incident: it’s just the latest event in the long and complicated history of conflict between Israel and Palestine, dating back to over 70 years ago. Yet even though there are many factors in play (including the fact that between 40-50% of the Palestinian and Israeli people oppose Hamas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, respectively)[1],[2] many people see this struggle as a black and white issue: one side is right, and the other side is wrong. The global community seems to be just as starkly divided as the nations that are actually involved in the conflict. Each nation has done whatever moral calculus makes sense to them, and they’ve chosen a side.