“Have No Fear”: A Sermon after Churchwide Assembly 2019

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, …

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A Sermon about Being Bread for Each Other

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 …

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A Sermon about Sabbath, Life, and Liberation: Lectionary 9 / Pentecost 2

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, …

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A Sermon about Being a Church That Is Always Reforming

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, …

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Lessons Learned from a String of Yarn: Reflections for LGBTQ+ History Month on National Coming Out Day 2016

Originally published in The Door, the student and community newsletter of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago I often remark that I find it amusing that the first person to whom I came out was a pastor. That was in 2011 and all the more remarkable because it came on the heels of graduating …

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