Tag Archives: Genesis
Ask and Receive
Ask like a child. It was the sort of thing that, if I heard a preacher saying it fifteen years ago would have annoyed me no end. I want what I want, but I want to be good, to be right in my own mind to ask for it, to be convincing to God and myself. I want to trust my words, my intentions, my plans and projects, my goals. But Jesus says to simply ask God for your daily bread.
Black Eyes and Wounded Hips
And the truth about people who do not fear God or respect humans is that they may look and sound and even feel tough, but in fact they are not. All it takes is the right kind of pressure to make the judge in the parable give in. The justice of the widow’s case is not his concern. His concern is only that he should not suffer or sacrifice for any particular outcome.
Faith with a Limp
Everyone has some scars from wrestling with God. Everyone has had to make a choice they didn’t want to make. Everyone has surrendered something to keep holding on to God. I am never more aware of this than when someone shares a story with me of how they have been wounded by the church. It breaks my heart because the church is where you are supposed to be safe and cared for and loved.
Excess and Deprivation
That’s the belly-god for you, though. He says “fill me up,” and you try to do it but he’s never full. He says “empty me out” and yet he’s never empty. He’s an easy god to worship, because he’s always with us and he’s never, ever satisfied.
Through the Waters of the Flood
Being a faithful person involves some loss. It involves letting the flood of baptism wash some things out of our hands. It involves dying to our desire for domination, dying to our need to always be right and wise in our own minds, dying to our need to have more and do more, dying to our desire to possess the world even at the expense of others. Being a faithful person means letting God rip those things from our hands, just as surely as it means being embraced by God and raised up by God and clothed in righteousness by God.
Ash Wednesday: What’s the Problem?
(Note: I preached this sermon at Messiah Lutheran Church on Ash Wednesday, 2016) Sisters and brothers grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. After all of that unpleasantness in the garden, God tells Adam about his life: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, […]
Ash Wednesday: Returning from Dust
(Note: I preached this sermon at Messiah Lutheran Church on Ash Wednesday, 2012) Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. When the LORD God chose to make a human being, the story goes, he knelt down in the dust of the earth. The LORD […]
New Starts and Used Parts
(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 […]
Brutally Ordinary Things 