First Lutheran Church of Avoca 1 January 2017 + Name of Jesus Luke 2.15-21 Well, it’s finally over. 2016. It’s been quite a year. An understatement if ever there was one. I’m sure I was not alone last night in watching the ball drop in Times Square as we said “good riddance!” to the past …
Continue reading A Sermon for the New Year on the Feast of the Name of Jesus
The poetry of John O'Donohue has long held the serendipitous capacity to speak to me with the right words at the right time. His collection of poems in To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (New York: Doubleday, 2008) has accompanied me most recently through the summer I spent as a hospital chaplain intern …
Preacher's note: This is a sermon for which you'll want to listen along, as there are audio elements not included in the manuscript. Augustana Lutheran Church 25 December 2016 + Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas Day) John 1.1-14 In the beginning— no, before the beginning— before the beginning when God sat alone in the murky …
Continue reading In the Beginning: A Homily, in Verse, for the Nativity of Our Lord
Lord of Love Lutheran Church 18 December 2016 + Fourth Sunday of Advent Isaiah 7.10-16; Matthew 1.18-25 Our first gospel text of Advent brought us a cheery end-of-the-world wake-up call, filled with images of rapture and thieves and catastrophic floods. Then we met the homely locust-eating, camel hair-wearing, name-calling John the Baptist and his brash …
Continue reading A Sermon about How Immanuel Has Nothing (and everything) to Do with Jesus
Lutheran Campus Ministry / Creighton University 11 December 2016 + Third Sunday of Advent Matthew 11.2-11; Isaiah 35.1-10 He had been so sure, so confident, so certain. He proclaimed a bold message of repentance and the dawning of the messianic age: Repent! For the reign of heaven has come near! One who is more powerful …
Continue reading A Blue Christmas Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent
Augustana Lutheran Church 27 November 2016 + First Sunday of Advent Matthew 24.36-44; Romans 13.11-14 Doomsday. The end is near. The rapture is coming. Don’t worry. I haven’t gone rogue or joined an end-of-the-world ultra-fundamentalist cult. But you have to admit there is a certain fascination many people have with some version or another of …
Continue reading Church Interrupted! A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent
Preached at St. Luke's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Omaha, NE, for a multi-congregational community Thanksgiving Eve service St. Luke’s Lutheran Church 23 November 2016 + Day of Thanksgiving (Eve) John 6.25-35 A quote from a recent New York Times article sums it up this way: “The election is over, but the repercussions in people’s lives may be …
Continue reading A Sermon about Awkward Holiday Dinners, Miracles, and Giving Thanks
As mentioned in my previous post, this year my internship congregation did a special liturgy for Christ the King Sunday, in which we traced the liturgical year, season by season, in a pattern of reading-reflection-hymn. What follows is my short reflection on the gospel pericope for Christ the King, Luke 23.33-43. I am also including …
This year, my internship congregation is doing a special liturgy for Christ the King Sunday. In the "Word" portion of the traditional four-fold ordo, we are tracing the liturgical year from Advent to its culmination in Christ the King, the church's "New Year's Eve" if you will, in a pattern of reading-reflection-hymn. The following Eucharistic …
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love... There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear... We love because he first loved us. Those who say, …
Continue reading Lament, Holy Anger, and Pastoral Encouragement: A Statement on Election Night 2016
Pastor Josh Evans 