St. John’s Lutheran Church5 November 2023 + All Saints SundayMatthew 5:1-12Rev. Josh Evans I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t feel very ‘blessed’ to mourn. When your whole world is ripped out from under you, when an unfathomable loss leaves a gaping hole in your heart, when all you can do is sob and …
St. John’s Lutheran Church22 October 2023 + Lect. 29a (21 Pentecost)Matthew 22.15-22Rev. Josh Evans You could have asked me literally anything: about God, about the Bible, about ministry. Instead, when it came time for the congregation meeting to call me as your pastor, only one question was raised: Are you a Bills fan? You might …
St. John’s Lutheran Church15 October 2023 + Lect. 28a (20 Pentecost)Matthew 22.1-14Rev. Josh Evans It’s been a difficult week. Because of an act of terror by an extremist group. Because of the resulting humanitarian crisis. And because of the way the present conflict has given rise to a renewed hostility and divisiveness, feeding into an …
Continue reading A Limitless Love and a Persistent Invitation
St. John’s Lutheran Church8 October 2023 + Lect. 27a (19 Pentecost)Matthew 21.33-46Rev. Josh Evans Living in an apartment has its downsides, to be sure: the smaller space, the lack of a backyard, the occasional loud party down the hall – or, even worse, upstairs. But it also has its advantages, especially if you’re anything like …
St. John’s Lutheran Church10 September 2023 + Lect. 23a (15 Pentecost)Matthew 18.15-20; Romans 13.8-14Rev. Josh Evans Every time this gospel reading comes around, I cringe. Not because I don’t think it has value, but because of the way it has been misunderstood and misused. In one interpretation, conflict management escalates from a one-on-one conversation, to …
St. John’s Lutheran Church3 September 2023 + Lectionary 22a (14 Pentecost)Matthew 16.21-28Rev. Josh Evans Everyone remembers Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Many of us could probably quote whole parts of it. We remember the most defining moments in King’s early ministry through the civil rights movement — the Montgomery bus boycott, the …
St. John’s Lutheran Church27 August 2023 + Lectionary 21a (13 Pentecost)Matthew 16.13-20Rev. Josh Evans I had only been attending my new church for a matter of months. Every week, the pattern of the liturgy was the same: alongside the scripture reading and the pastor’s sermon was testimony. Someone from the congregation would be invited, in …
St. John’s Lutheran Church20 August 2023 + Lectionary 20a (12 Pentecost)Matthew 15.21-28Rev. Josh Evans “Divorced. Beheaded. Died.Divorced. Beheaded. Survived.”1 Such are the respective fates of the six wives of King Henry VIII, as each of them recounts in turn, during a fictionalized pop concert that forms the basis for SIX: The Musical (now playing on …
St. John’s Lutheran Church6 August 2023 + Lectionary 18a (10 Pentecost)Matthew 14.13-21; Isaiah 55.1-5Rev. Josh Evans I’d like to think I know a thing or two about good food. Within the first few months of moving across the country, I’ve already found my new go-to places for tacos, pizza, and bagels – three of the …
St. John’s Lutheran Church30 July 2023 + Lectionary 17a (9 Pentecost)Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52Rev. Josh Evans “Have you understood all this?” What a stupid question. With all due respect to Jesus, you can’t exactly unload five rapid-fire parables like that and expect your hearers to understand immediately, without question. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve …
Pastor Josh Evans 