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 …
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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 Church17 September 2023 + Holy Cross (observed)1 Corinthians 1.18-24Rev. Josh Evans Everyone loves a good underdog story. When Rachel Phelps, who by all appearances couldn’t care less about baseball, inherits the team (now) formerly known as the Cleveland Indians from her late husband, she contrives a plan: The Indians are already terrible, …
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 …
St. John’s Lutheran Church23 July 2023 + Lectionary 16a (8 Pentecost)Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43Rev. Josh Evans As you already know from last week, I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “country person.” I don’t know the first thing about farming, I can’t keep a houseplant alive, and – I can’t overstate this enough …
Pastor Josh Evans 