Lutheran Church of the Cross, Arlington Heights 13 May 2018 + Easter 7B John 17.6-19 After my first year of seminary, I moved to Cleveland to spend the summer as a hospital chaplain — just one of the many steps along the way to becoming a pastor. This chaplaincy internship is officially called CPE: Clinical …
Continue reading A Sermon on Being Prayed For: Easter 7/Ascension
Grace Lutheran Church, Lily Lake 6 May 2018 + Easter 6B John 15.9-17 “I am a failure at prayer” …so writes Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor. And, I have to confess: So am I. Like Taylor, I have more books on prayer and spiritual practices in my home library than I know what to do …
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Chicago 17 March 2018 + Lent 5B Jeremiah 31.31-34; John 12.20-33 Wakanda Forever! (Not to be confused with the Illinois suburb, Wauconda.) It’s the rallying cry of a remote African nation at the heart of the recent theatrical blockbuster Black Panther. Theirs is a civilization technologically advanced beyond that of any …
Augustana Chapel at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 5 March 2018 + Lent 3B John 2.13-22; Exodus 20.1-17 What does this mean? I can still hear those words as if I were hearing them in my childhood confirmation classroom. “What does this mean?” “We are to fear, love, and trust God above all …
Continue reading Covenant, Promise, Presence: A Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent
Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Northbrook 28 January 2018 + Reconciling in Christ Sunday Matthew 19.10-15 (NRSV); Acts 8.26-40 (Inclusive Bible) So there I was, sitting in the chapel at St. Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista, California. It was opening worship, and the liturgy continued with a litany, naming significant events and ordinations in …
Continue reading A Sermon for Reconciling in Christ (RIC) Sunday
A sermon preached for ML 502: Preaching the Gospel of John at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, October 25, 2017 John 6.35, 41-51 (Proper 14B) If I’m being completely honest, the prospect of going on internship to Omaha, Nebraska, didn’t strike me as particularly exciting. I mean, really? Nebraska? As someone who grew …
Continue reading A Sermon about the Bread of Life and God’s Abundance in the Midst of Scarcity
This is the final sermon preached at my internship congregation, as I draw my year (how quickly it's gone by!) to a close. I am so grateful for the privilege of being invited into so many lives over the past year, in sadness and in joy and everything in between. The people of Augustana will …
Augustana Lutheran Church 18 June 2017 + Lectionary 11A Matthew 9.35–10.8-23 [Video/audio unavailable due to ornery technology. Also, a generally delayed posting due to an overworked vicar at the end of his tenure.] Our gospel text this morning comes on the heels of Jesus’s famous Sermon on the Mount, and as any good preacher will …
Continue reading A Sermon for Ordinary Time (again!) in Which I Quote Lady Gaga
Photo by Josh Evans, Stained Glass (South Window) at Augustana Lutheran Church, Omaha, Nebraska, © 2017. Augustana Lutheran Church 4 June 2017 + Day of Pentecost Acts 2.1-21; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 There’s a certain pleasure in watching a cooking show on TV — my personal favorite is The Barefoot Contessa — and then searching out …
Continue reading A Pentecost Sermon about Diversity in Unity
Augustana Lutheran Church 7 May 2017 + Fourth Sunday of Easter 1 Peter 2.19-25 Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Fourth Sunday of Easter brings us to Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s tempting, isn’t it, to dwell in the midst of the idyllic early Christian community described in our reading from Acts, or to linger beside the …
Continue reading A Sermon about Resistance in the Face of Suffering
Pastor Josh Evans 