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 …
Augustana Lutheran Church 30 October 2016 + Reformation Sunday John 8.31-36 There are more than a few one-liners peppered through the Bible—single verses plucked out for their pithy expression of some essential theological truth. Today we encounter one such one-liner: “[Then] you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The problem, …
Continue reading A Sermon about Being a Church That Is Always Reforming
Augustana Lutheran Church 23 October 2016 + Lectionary 30C Luke 18.9-14 Music permeates our culture. How many times have we caught ourselves singing along (some of us admittedly more poorly than others) to the radio in the car or in the shower? It’s simply hard to imagine life without music. It’s hard, too, to imagine …
Augustana Lutheran Church 25 September 2016 + Lectionary 26C Luke 16.19-31; 1 Timothy 6.6-19 One of my favorite scenes in the film adaptation of the popular rock musical Rent opens on an impoverished-looking apartment complex in Manhattan’s East Village, where we are introduced to two roommates, Mark and Roger, and their former roommate and friend-turned-landlord, …
Continue reading A(nother!) Sermon about Wealth and Chasm-Crossing
Augustana Lutheran Church 11 September 2016 + Lectionary 24C Exodus 32.7-14 Liturgical whiplash. It’s the result of a hearing a bizarre pairing of seemingly disparate lectionary texts. On the one hand, there’s the angry vengeful God ready to smite the Israelites in Exodus—and yet, it’s precisely that kind of rash judgment toward “sinners” that Jesus …
Augustana Lutheran Church 28 August 2016 + Lectionary 22C Luke 14.1, 7-14 Wash your hands. Pray before you eat. Don’t chew with your mouth open. Keep your elbows off the table. All phrases that I imagine each of us has heard as children that teach us table manners. And the fancier the meal, these table …
Continue reading A Sermon for Those Who Have Been Told to Take the Lowest Place
This Sunday, I had the opportunity to worship with the people of God at First Lutheran Church, a neighboring ELCA congregation not far from Augustana. You can read more about the ministry FLC is up to in Omaha on their website. First Lutheran Church, Omaha, NE 21 August 2016 + Lectionary 21C Luke 13.10-17 Some …
Continue reading A Sermon about Keeping the Sabbath (and Why It’s So Hard)
