Sermon: Masters of Mercy
Masters of Mercy explores how our habits form us in an age when Americans spend nearly 49 hours each week consuming digital content. Moving through Matthew 15—from the Pharisees’ obsession with purity to the persistent faith of the Canaanite woman—the sermon reveals the widening reach of God’s saving mercy. Isaiah and Romans confirm that God gathers outsiders and extends grace beyond expected boundaries. Because we ourselves have been gathered and welcomed to a table we did not earn, Christians are called to become “masters of mercy,” formed by Christ and sent to gossip the good news.
Sermon: Thy Strong Word
God does not always show up in the ways we expect. Elijah encounters him not in wind, earthquake, or fire, but in sheer silence; the disciples encounter him walking across a raging sea. Yet in both stories, the decisive reality is the same: the trustworthy Word of the living God. The Word who tells Elijah to go and Peter to come still speaks to us, calling forth the same response from God’s people: trust and worship.
Sermon: Tell and Show
This sermon considers the feeding of the five thousand as an instance of God’s characteristic pattern of “telling and showing.” Jesus has already described the hidden, abundant economy of the kingdom through parables; now, in a deserted place among a hungry crowd, he makes that kingdom visible through compassion, healing, bread, and the gathered fragments. Read alongside Isaiah 55 and Psalm 145, the miracle reveals God’s provision as the tangible expression of his steadfast love and the fulfillment of his covenant promises. The Eucharistic pattern of taking, blessing, breaking, and giving then becomes not only a sign of Christ’s self-offering but also a pattern for Christian witness: having heard and seen the goodness of God in Christ, the Church is sent to tell that good news and embody it before a hungry world.
Sermon: It-is-Well Hallelujah
In Jesus Christ you are not a lost cause! You are not damaged beyond Jesus’ ability to repair! Yes, through our sins and wickedness, we are broken beyond our own repair, but Jesus is the one who makes all things news, reconciling us to himself, restoring us to the Father. The Good News is that Jesus “wastes his time on you” because you are beloved by God.
Sermon: Gamblin' on Heaven
At its core, every wager is an act of faith. Every bet asks the same question: What, or whom, can I trust with my future? Christ followers are called to trust in something stronger.Something steadfast.Something surer.Our passages show us that the safest, surest bet is not a sports team, player, statistic, political party, stock, or a man-made work. Instead, our readings demonstrate what it looks like to train for the Kingdom by gamblin’ on heaven. In fact, these passages show us the false bet, the better bet, and the sure bet.
Sermon: Who God Says You Are
The Bible tells a different story where God is the main actor;Where God does the work of salvation;Where God transforms us through his grace and mercy.It’s a story of the God who always loved you.We are not saved by what we have done.We are saved by what God has done for us.We are saved by who God says we are.
Sermon: Another Story Must Begin
The Gospel tells the story of transformation and redemption. And when that transformation happens, the story doesn’t end there. The Gospel was never only about personal salvation. It was always about being Christ’s witnesses as agents of reconciliation and ambassadors of the good news in a world desperately in need of hope, of a future, of God.
Old Friends and Bookends: A Trinity Sunday Sermon
Three persons are present in creation: God the Father is obvious. The Spirit is there, too, brooding and hovering over the deep like a mother bird over her young. But did you notice the second person? When God said let there be light and it was so, this was the presence of the divine Logos. The Word who would later be the Word made flesh flowing forth from the metaphorical mouth of God as an active agent in creation. Before we ever hear about stars and skies, slithering snakes, and slow-slinking sloths, we see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a co-eternal relationship overflowing with love into creation.
Sermon: For What and Now What?
The ascension means that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, reigning and ruling over all of creation, filling all things, interceding and mediating on our behalf, inviting us to boldly approach the throne of grace, until he comes again in the fullness of time to consummate the kingdom he has already inaugurated.
The God Who Provides
Read through the lens of Jesus, Abraham’s story is a depiction of the eucharistic life. We may be missing bread and wine, but his journey by stages includes the other elements of the eucharist: praise, worship, sacrifice, covenant, and the unrelenting love of the Faithful One. The altars which Abraham builds are like lighthouses amidst a weary and wanting world stand as a reminder of God’s presence to light the way as a spiritual reference point. The eucharist is given to us as a lighthouse, as well, that we might find safe harbor. The one who is both priest-and-victim is ever with us. God is present in the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and everywhere in between.
Behold and Beholding the Glory
Jesus doesn’t become glorious on the mountain. He has always been glorious, from before the beginning of time, from before the foundations of the world. In the Transfiguration, we find the veil being pulled back and Jesus is seen and revealed as he truly is!
Further Up, Further In: The Reprise
This isn’t a forgiveness story or reconciliation tale, however. It is a reinstitution, restoration, and redemption story. It is a reprise, a re-commissioning for ministry. As C.S. Lewis so masterfully describes it in The Last Battle of The Chronicles of Narnia: Jesus invites Peter to go further up, further in.
Sermon: I sonder as I wander
I sonder as I wander to the cross at calvary;I watch the faces in the crowd discover his blood for thee;Every life finds its meaning in the weight of his glor’y;I sonder as I wander to the cross at calvary.
God of Grace and God of Glory
The grace and glory of God are most fully revealed and embodied through Jesus in the cross as he bears the weight and punishment of our sins so we don’t have to! We had racked up a debt which we could not pay, but the Son poured himself out on the cross in our stead.
Losers Rule
Jesus took our sin and shame to the cross and he said, “It is finished.” You are forgiven. You are redeemed. There is no fine print or blackout date. It is finished. God has parted the red sea of your sin and brought you to a land flowing freely with forgiveness.
A Community of Character
Because Jesus’s heart overflows with mercy and abounds with grace, therefore we are enabled to bind up the broken, heal the sick, search for the strays, bring back the lost, and strengthen the weak. This is not a task built upon retribution but a process soaked in prayer, covered in the name of Jesus, and teeming with divine love.
Hope (in the Resurrection) Changes Everything
Heavenly Father, this is your world. You are the source of all comfort, the author of all life, and the giver of all good things; you are both promise maker and promise keeper. We come before you with deep gratitude for giving us the spirit of adoption and making us joint heirs with Christ of your eternal kingdom. Bless this time, O Lord, and open your scriptures to us and us to your scriptures that we might know who you are, who we are, and whose we are. We ask this all in the name of our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Word of the Kingdom
This kingdom is good news for the poor, the downtrodden, the neglected, the forgotten, the overlooked, the abused and misused, the unemployed and underemployed, the sin-sick, the heartsick, and the soul-sick. This kingdom is freedom, it is release, it is salvation, it is jubilee, it is abundant life in the here and now. This kingdom is the news that God’s reign and rule is here, that God has put on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood, that God is both covenant maker and covenant keeper, and that God will trample down death with his own death, opening up to us the way of eternal, abundant life.
Here am I, Send Me!
This is not just any God. This is the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the God who chose a man to become a nation, who fashioned a people from himself, who rescued them from Egypt, who led them as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, who settled them into the Promised Land. This is the God who is both covenant maker and covenant keeper. This is the God who is seated upon the throne, reigning and ruling over creation. This is the “holy, holy, holy” whose glory fills the whole earth. This is the God before whom our only response can be, “Woe is me! I am lost! I am unclean! I am a ragamuffin!”