(Note: I wrote this in January 2011) Back when I was just getting started in ministry, early in my seminary career, Christmas was a high point of the year. There is a strange thrill in doing something, as it were, from the inside out–in knowing the alleys that connect the gleaming storefronts, in working while […]
(Note: I preached this sermon at Messiah Lutheran Church on the Baptism of Our Lord, 2015) Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Someone asked me this week if I thought it was possible to really have a new start in life—a fresh start […]
(Note: I preached this sermon on the second Sunday after Epiphany, January 15, 2012) Every week when we gather around the sacrament or when we dedicate our offerings of money and praise to God, we pray the Lord’s Prayer. And here we pray the traditional version, so every week we pray, “Lead us not into […]
(Note: I wrote this for my blog in January, 2008) Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. at church. The pastor switched the appointed Gospel reading with a passage from the Sermon on the Mount and, between the readings and the children’s sermon, we listened to an excerpt from one of King’s […]
(Note: I preached this sermon at Messiah Lutheran Church on the Second Sunday after Epiphany 2018). Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I want to note two special prayer concerns for today, one of them sorrowful and one joyful. First, I have added […]
When you write compulsively, people will tell you by way of encouragement or indulgence that you should write a book. The logic of it may not be quite clear, but it can be very persuasive all the same. I heard this and said it to myself over the years, lacking only a firm grasp on […]
The corner of Twitter in which I do most of my reading and arguing has been furiously arguing over the story of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish child in Bologna secretly baptized by his family’s maid, and Pope Pius IX, who removed him from his home in accordance with law forbidding a Catholic child to be […]
“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’” The […]
(Note: I preached this sermon on the third Sunday in Advent, 2011) Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. “Then the angel departed from her.” Does anyone else just want to burst into tears when you hear this verse at the end of today’s […]
(Note: This sermon was preached on the third Sunday of Advent in 2011, when these Dos Equis ads were still relatively new and creative). Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I want to tell you this morning about my favorite series of beer […]
Brutally Ordinary Things 