St. Philip Lutheran Church31 July 2022 + Lect. 18c (Pentecost 8)Hosea 11.1-11Rev. Josh Evans Who among us isn’t guilty of looking back at the past with a certain sentimental nostalgia? Usually those moments come during especially difficult times in the present. When the going gets tough, we open up the mental scrapbooks and reminisce about …
St. Philip Lutheran Church12 June 2022 + The Holy TrinityJohn 16.12-15; Exodus 3Rev. Josh Evans After four years of seminary, including two years of field education placements, and now nearly four years into ordained ministry, I’ve reached the stage of my preaching career where my sermon prep usually begins with a quick search through my …
Continue reading A God Who Cannot Be Explained (But Has to Be Experienced)
St. Philip Lutheran Church7 March 2021 + Lent 3BExodus 20.1-17; 1 Cor 1.18-25; John 2.13-22Rev. Josh Evans, preaching She wasn’t sure what she expected to happen, but it wasn’t that. She could never have imagined what happened next… You might even say it was unprecedented. That seems to be the word of the last year, …
Unity Lutheran Church + Cross of Life Campus15 March 2020 + Lent 3AJohn 4.5-42; Exodus 17.1-7Rev. Josh Evans, preaching This week at Unity, we live-streamed our Saturday liturgy at the Cross of Life Campus and our Sunday liturgy at the Christ the King Campus. The COL recording is linked here, and the gospel reading and …
Continue reading A Sermon for a Time of Wilderness, Isolation, and Crisis
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
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 …
Pastor Josh Evans 