Sermon: "The Trouble with Teaching", Isaiah 50:4-9a/James 3:1-12 (September 16, 2018)

9/16/18

Sermon video here.

Now that school has been back in session for a month or so here in Idaho, and we’ve resumed our full Christian Education program here at FPC, it seems like as good a time as any to talk about teachers. I mean, we all know how important teachers are, right? They’re the ones who help us to grow into better people by opening our minds, supporting our exploration, and encouraging our discoveries. The best ones help us to understand and appreciate things that we previously had little interest in. I bet that most of us can easily recall a favorite teacher of ours from our past—and it might not have been a school teacher. Friends, family, extracurricular leaders, neighbors, pastors, even folks you meet on the street: any of these people could wind up teaching you.

If You Love Something...

I am not a gardener.

In fact, I would characterize myself as "the furthest thing possible from a gardener". What's the opposite color of green? That's what color my thumb is. So when my sunflowers started wilting, I was devastated.

Nick and I bought a sunflower plant a month or two ago because it was getting towards the end of the season, so they were on clearance. It was his idea--he knows how much I love sunflowers and how anxious I am about the state of our garden and yard (i.e. "off the charts" anxious), so he suggested that we give it a shot. Now, you have to understand how I feel about sunflowers. They're my favorite flower. They were in my wedding bouquet. They're a tangible symbol of light and hope is a world that is often weighed down with ugliness and pain. So yeah, I like sunflowers.

Sermon: "Where's Waldo--I Mean, God?", 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 9-11, 22-30/Psalm 84 (August 26, 2018)

8/26/18

Sermon video here.

Sometimes, searching for things can be fun. The increasing popularity of scavenger hunts, geocaching, and escape-the-room games attest to that. When I was a kid, though, we didn’t have quite as many of these opportunities, and I wasn’t one to get out very often anyway, so most of my recreational searching was done between the pages of a book. And of course, in the early ‘90s, there was no search-puzzle book greater than Where’s Waldo.

Sermon: "The 'Me' Generation", Deuteronomy 32:1-7, 15-18, 28-29/Mark 6:14-29 (July 15, 2018)

7/15/2018

Sermon video here.

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“Millennials. Am I right??”

There’s a popular trend these days—it’s nearly impossible for you to have missed it—which involves complaining about anything that the Millennial Generation does. I’m talking everything from refusing to move out of their parents’ house to “killing” department stores to their overwhelming social media presence to their infamous penchant for avocado toast. If a Millennial has done it, someone somewhere has complained about it.

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”.

Braiding and Brokenness: The Significance of Our Lenten Practice

It's been a few weeks that Lent has been over, now. Since I've gotten some emotional distance from the difficulty of the Triduum and the catch-up work that always happens after Easter Sunday, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on our Lenten practice this year.

Many people of all ages (even some from outside our immediate congregational community!) took part in our lenten braiding project. Each Sunday, I collected the braids that people turned in, and spent my afternoon weaving them together by hand, one by one, using a continuous piece of yarn--my own personal Lenten practice.

Life and Love out of Darkness (Maundy Thursday)

Each year, our community combines Holy Week services with another local church, Southminster Presbyterian Church. We alternate who takes point on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday--this year, we were up for Maundy Thursday. 

Now, Maundy Thursday is known as "the day when we wash each other's feet" in many communities, but in many others, the thought of touching another person's bare foot is enough to turn them atheist. You may recall that two years ago, we did a ritual involving broken pottery that was both beautiful and profound (from my perspective, at least). This year, since our Lenten focus was on symbols, I wanted to make sure we did something significant that tied into our theme.