St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York2 June 2024 + Lectionary 9bMark 2:23–3:6; Deuteronomy 5:12-15Rev. Josh Evans “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it boring.” That’s how Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor recalls her childhood religious experience of “sabbath” – a day defined by “could nots”: you could not wear blue jeans, you could not play …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York26 May 2024 + The Holy TrinityJohn 3:1-17Rev. Josh Evans What’s love got to do with it? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It’s been cited more often than …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York19 May 2024 + The Day of PentecostActs 2:1-21Rev. Josh Evans “I grew up with two languages,” Isaac Villegas reflects on his childhood – speaking English at home with his parents and sister, while being absorbed in the native Spanish of his Costa Rican grandparents during the day when his …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York12 May 2024 + Seventh Sunday of EasterJohn 17:6-19Rev. Josh Evans After attending the final funeral together, Carolyn Goodman, Fannie Lee Chaney, and Anne Schwerner stand alone in a New York City apartment. Inspired by a photograph captured of the three women in August of 1964, playwright Ajene D. Washington …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York28 April 2024 + Fifth Sunday of EasterActs 8:26-40; John 15:1-8Rev. Josh Evans He doesn’t even get a name, and yet he gives us one of the most profound stories of belonging in all of Scripture. “As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York21 April 2024 + Fourth Sunday of EasterJohn 10:11-18Rev. Josh Evans Here are two words I never thought I’d hear together: “Swift scholar.” As in: a scholar – not of 18th century Anglo-Irish priest and satire author Jonathan Swift – but of 21st century singer-songwriter Taylor Swift … … who, …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York7 April 2024 + Second Sunday of EasterJohn 20:19-31Rev. Josh Evans If the villains of Holy Week are Judas and Peter, then the villain of Eastertide is Thomas. Doubting. Thomas. Who earns his infamous title not even for anything particularly egregious that he does … but solely for being absent …
St. John’s Lutheran Church31 March 2024 + Resurrection of Our LordMark 16:1-8Rev. Josh Evans “They said nothing to anyone.” Okay. Time to wrap it up, and we can all head to Easter brunch early. See you next Sunday! *** Okay, maybe not quite yet … y’all did come all this way… *** Remember how it …
St. John’s Lutheran Church28 March 2024 + Maundy ThursdayJohn 13:1-17, 31b-35Rev. Josh Evans I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. It’s so simple – deceptively, even – this new commandment at the heart of this day, so named Mandatum – “Commandment” – Thursday. I give you a new commandment, that you …
St. John’s Lutheran Church17 March 2024 + Lent 5bJeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-33Rev. Josh Evans It’s a changing and challenging world – shaped by bitter political rivalries, competing factions and parties vying for power, unrelenting wars and violence, displaced peoples fleeing persecution and oppression. In the midst of it all, Jeremiah prophesies. Jeremiah knows something of …
Pastor Josh Evans 