You would’ve thought I had asked if Jesus was the Son of God or not. Earlier this week, I posed a simple poll on Facebook to my fellow Lutherans: This weekend, my congregation is observing: 👍 The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost(and we’re staying green) ❤️ Reformation Sunday(and we’re going red) Please react appropriately. The reactions …
Continue reading Celebrating Reformation Sunday by Not Celebrating Reformation Sunday
St. John’s Lutheran Church18 June 2023 + Lectionary 11a (3 Pentecost)Matthew 9.35–10.23Rev. Josh Evans Another Sunday, another call story. Actually, make that stories (plural). In the span of a few verses, one disciple becomes twelve – and probably more than that. They’re just the ones (the men) who get named. Their task: Proclaim the good …
St. Philip Lutheran Church5 June 2022 + Day of PentecostActs 2.1-21Rev. Josh Evans [Disclaimer: This sermon is going to be interactive, and in a few minutes, I’m going to invite you to share briefly with someone you’re sitting next to. You’ve been warned.] They were all together in one place. For the past 36 hours, …
Continue reading A Sermon about How the Holy Spirit Shows Up
St. Philip Lutheran Church12 September 2021 + Lectionary 24b (Pent. 16)James 3.1-12Rev. Josh Evans My recent road trip brought me safely from Chicago, through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania. Next stop: New York. As I made my way through New Jersey - about to cross the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan - traffic that had been steadily …
Pastoral Message on Minneapolis - May 29, 2020Rev. Josh Evans Over the past few days and weeks, we have been confronted yet again by the ugly reality of racism in this country. The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are only the latest in a long litany of black and brown lives …
Continue reading Pastoral Message on Minneapolis – May 29, 2020
Unity Lutheran Church + Cross of Life Campus11 August 2019 + Lectionary 19CLuke 12.32-40Rev. Josh Evans, preaching Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Elizabeth Platz. Earlean Miller? Ruth Frost? Phyllis Zillhart? Let’s try an easier one: Elizabeth Eaton? What all of these women share in common is that they’re ordained Lutheran pastors—a phenomenon which, …
Continue reading “Have No Fear”: A Sermon after Churchwide Assembly 2019
It's hard to believe, but it's now been two months since the day I was ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament and made a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Wow. Like so many others who have entered into this sacred vocation, I continued to be astounded at this odd and …
Wicker Park Lutheran Church, Chicago 19 August 2018 + Lectionary 20B (Pentecost 13) John 6.51-58 When I started seminary four years ago, I learned a lot of new words: Eschatological. Pneumatology. Exegesis. Hermeneutics. (Not to mention all the Greek and Hebrew vocabulary I memorized.) It doesn’t really matter if you know what any of those …
This week, I was invited to preach at the weekly Eucharist at the Churchwide Office ("headquarters") of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), where I have also recently started a position as Interim Coordinator for Global Service Events with the Global Mission Unit of the ELCA. Pictured above, from left to right, is me, …
Continue reading A Sermon about Sabbath, Life, and Liberation: Lectionary 9 / Pentecost 2
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
Pastor Josh Evans 