Preacher of Habit

For Palm Sunday, I had a bit of a creative flair and broke from traditional norms. Instead of a sermon, I wrote a poem called "What Kind of Love?" This poem followed the readings of the  Liturgy of the Palms and The Liturgy of the Passion. Enjoy!  What Kind of Love? What kind of love Would form man out of dust And breathe His own life into him, Knowing the story that was soon to unfold? What kind of love Would share holy space with earthly vulnerability Inviting human to mingle with divine, The flawed with the flawless? What kind of love Would create beauty and freedom, boundaries and will, joy and intimacy, Yet allow for the possibility that we might refuse it all? What kind of love is this? What kind of love Watches his beloved walk away, only to send a prophet to call us back? And hears our cries, forged by self-inflicted chains of God-forgetfulness, Yet waits for us, yearning for the day we return home? ...

The Son of God           March 17 and 18 Matthew 16: 13-20   Today we continue The Story as we make our way to God’s final act in getting us back to the Garden. You know, we were always meant to enjoy an intimate life with God, but due to our sin, the story God was writing took an unexpected turn. And today we begin to put all the pieces together. We’ve listened and talked about a whole narrative of stories, some we’ve understood, and some we haven’t. And sometimes it’s felt as if we’ve been lost in unnecessary details. But today, this entire story begins to come into focus as we wrestle with a common question, “Just exactly, who is Jesus? “ If you have your Bibles… Have you ever tried to figure someone out? Like, have you ever wondered if someone really is who she or he says they are? We do this all the time, whether we know it or not. We do it when we date; when we meet our child’s teacher for parent-te...

No Ordinary Man        March 10 and 11, 2016 Scripture: Mark 5: 1-20             There’s a phenomenal story about Jesus in the Gospels that leaves his followers quite speechless. It would probably leave us speechless as well, maybe even a bit scared, but it’s an important story to know. Jesus and his disciples are on a boat when a storm whips up. With the wind howling and the waves crashing, the disciples run around trying to preserve their ship and save their lives, but astonishingly, Jesus is fast asleep. He must be the type of guy who can sleep through anything, even disturbing, life-threatening storms. Except this storm doesn’t seem to phase him. It phases every other person, but it does not phase him. When they finally get him awake, Jesus calmly walks to the upper level of the boat and tells the storm to calm down…and it does. The waves grow smaller, the wind dies down a...