Sermon: “K.I.S.S.”, Exodus 3:1-15 (October 1, 2023)

Shakespeare once asked, “What’s in a name?” His point, of course, was to say that one’s name is unimportant, that it doesn’t change who the person behind the name is. While that sentiment does have SOME merit, it’s ultimately irrelevant: a name may not change who a person is, but it definitely impacts how we move about in the world and how we’re perceived. (And this is, whether intentionally or not, exactly what Romeo and Juliet wound up proving in the end.)

Sermon: “Let Us Build a House: Laying the Foundation”, Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16/Luke 1:57-66 (December 5, 2021)

(This is the second sermon in our Advent and Christmas series, "Let Us Build a House", based on the Advent theme from A Sanctified Art. The first can be found here.)

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More than 400 years ago, Shakespeare put pen to paper and asked, “What’s in a name?” His character, Juliet Capulet, was trying to convince herself that names really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things…but unfortunately, she didn’t actually have much support for her hypothesis. Not only did her family hold a dramatically different opinion on the matter, but pretty much everyone else in the world would disagree with her, too. Across time and cultures, names have always been central to human identity, and we’ve always put great care into choosing them. Even surnames, which had been passed along according to the same archaic customs for centuries, have recently been subject to more careful discernment than ever before. Because, contrary to what Juliet would have us believe, the fact is that our names DO matter.