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: 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: A Parable Girl Summer
In the midst of a world seeking answers in all the wrong things and all the wrong places, Christ calls us to trust in him by watching for him, waiting on him, and working with him. In a world of god-delusions and god-confusions, Christ beckons us to live with gospel-vision in light of God's provision.
Little House and Living Water
Jesus said that we will be filled with the living water, that eternal life will gush forth in us. This water will leave us fully satisfied, satiated, and quenched. But we are creatures who get parched very easily and we need a steady diet of living water. From what pools are you drinking? Too many of us drink from the pools of popularity, the pursuit of wealth and happiness, alcohol, sex, grumbling, or narcissism. To all who are thirsty: Jesus offers himself, he invites us to be satisfied in him. He will not run dry.
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.
Is the LORD's Power Limited?
Pentecost is the fulfillment of ancient promises! John even told us in our passage that the Spirit had not yet been sent because Christ had not yet been glorified. In Acts 2, however, with the God being glorified in Christ crucified, raised, and ascended, the prophesied and promised Spirit is shared among Jesus’ followers, filling them to overflowing.
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.
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.
Call and Response
Once God sees that Moses has turned aside and drawn closer, God calls out to him, calling him by name. God knew Moses before Moses ever knew God. You, my friends, were known by God before you ever knew him. God knows you intimately. He knows your deepest thoughts, your strongest fears, your most burning desires. He knows the number of hairs on your head, he knit you together in your mother’s womb. You are known by God and you will be known by God, world without end. Amen.
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!”
The God of Abraham Praise
God’s promises to Abraham are not given in a vacuum. These promises represent the outline of fulfillment to a promise God made in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. The first humans sinned but God promised salvation. There would be enmity between the woman’s offspring and the serpent, and there would be toil when working the ground and pain in childbirth…but God promised to set the world to rights. The promises to Abram in Genesis 12 are the beginning of that process!
A Burning Fire in my Bones
Friends, we cannot, we must not, we shall not remain silent about the vast and unrelenting love of Christ any longer! We aren’t called to comfort but to courage, not to platitudes but to proclamation, we have been called to discipleship.
You’ll Never Walk Alone
The Trinity means that you are never alone. It means that you are never without promise, presence, or purpose. It means that you always have provision and protection, peace and power. It means that your response is always to be praise and proclamation.