Tag Archives: Psalms
Shouting Stones
I used to think that human beings were the only creatures—aside from the angels—that worshiped. That we lived in this vast silent dead universe, and only our tiny songs of praise were the only worship that filled it up.
I think I was wrong about that. Now I suspect that we’re the only creatures that don’t worship. That cease from worship.
World and Word
I remember being a college student in the desert in California and looking up at the night sky and being filled with a kind of awe I did not have a name for. I didn’t yet have any firm ideas about God. But it was as if I was being asked something: is there some great unity behind this vast universe? Do the stars in their courses have anything to do with me, a little tiny person on a mountain somewhere? There is something about beauty and vastness and the sheer power of nature that leads us to the edge of ourselves, right up to God.
Ash Wednesday: Rent Hearts
“Hardness of heart” is a powerful metaphor. Because that’s how we live and make our choices: one at a time, little by little, day by day. We don’t feel the sclerosis of our hearts because it doesn’t happen all at once. We just lose that softness a little bit each day. We lose that responsiveness to God, or to conscience, or to our neighbor. At first it was hard to ignore the voice of God, but it got easier every time. A hard spiritual heart, like a hard physical one, eventually just stops working.
Ash Wednesday: Starting Again
(Note: I preached this sermon at Messiah Lutheran Church on Ash Wednesday, 2013) Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. About this time twelve years ago, I wandered into Rockefeller Memorial Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago. I was studying a […]
Ash Wednesday: Create in Me
(Note: I preached this sermon at Wicker Park Lutheran Church on Ash Wednesday, 2011) Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. “Human love starts with the object,” Martin Luther wrote in an academic dispute in the year 1518. “The love of God does not […]
Brutally Ordinary Things 