St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York4 August 2024 + Lectionary 18bJohn 6:24-35Rev. Josh Evans “Sometimes bread is just bread,”as the brilliant New Testament scholar Dr. Barbara Rossing once suggested,following a decisively eucharistic sermon I had just delivered on John chapter 6 one afternoon during a preaching class at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York21 July 2024 + Mary Magdalene, ApostleJohn 20:1-2, 11-18Rev. Josh Evans If Jesus is “the reason for the [Christmas] season,”then Mary Magdalene is the reason for the Easter season. Mary Magdalene,witness to the resurrection,apostle to the apostles –without whom no good news would have been proclaimed. “Woman, weeping in the …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York7 July 2024 + Lectionary 14bMark 6:1-13Rev. Josh Evans It’s not always easy, this life of being a disciple. Take nothing. No bread, no bag, no money. Nothing but your staff, the clothes on your back, and the sandals on your feet. Take nothing. Utterly rely on the providence of …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York23 June 2024 + Lectionary 12bMark 4:35-41Rev. Josh Evans A mysterious new alarm appears on the console. “It’s probably not important,” they say, dismissively. Such is where we leave the intrepid crew of personified emotions – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust – safely in “Headquarters,” having navigated now 12-year-old …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York2 June 2024 + Lectionary 9bMark 2:23–3:6; Deuteronomy 5:12-15Rev. Josh Evans “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it boring.” That’s how Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor recalls her childhood religious experience of “sabbath” – a day defined by “could nots”: you could not wear blue jeans, you could not play …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York26 May 2024 + The Holy TrinityJohn 3:1-17Rev. Josh Evans What’s love got to do with it? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It’s been cited more often than …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York19 May 2024 + The Day of PentecostActs 2:1-21Rev. Josh Evans “I grew up with two languages,” Isaac Villegas reflects on his childhood – speaking English at home with his parents and sister, while being absorbed in the native Spanish of his Costa Rican grandparents during the day when his …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York12 May 2024 + Seventh Sunday of EasterJohn 17:6-19Rev. Josh Evans After attending the final funeral together, Carolyn Goodman, Fannie Lee Chaney, and Anne Schwerner stand alone in a New York City apartment. Inspired by a photograph captured of the three women in August of 1964, playwright Ajene D. Washington …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York28 April 2024 + Fifth Sunday of EasterActs 8:26-40; John 15:1-8Rev. Josh Evans He doesn’t even get a name, and yet he gives us one of the most profound stories of belonging in all of Scripture. “As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York21 April 2024 + Fourth Sunday of EasterJohn 10:11-18Rev. Josh Evans Here are two words I never thought I’d hear together: “Swift scholar.” As in: a scholar – not of 18th century Anglo-Irish priest and satire author Jonathan Swift – but of 21st century singer-songwriter Taylor Swift … … who, …
Pastor Josh Evans 