Matthew 22: 1-14 (October 15, 2023) I mentioned last week that we were beginning a series of texts where Jesus is in confrontation with the religious authorities. Parables, we remember, were used by Jesus to “reveal what had been hidden since the foundations of the world.” Again, in today’s Gospel reading, we see Jesus directing […]
Matthew 21:33-46 (Sunday, October 8, 2023) I’ve rented more than one home in my life. For a period of time when I lived in Marietta, GA, I owned a condominium. But ever since I left Marietta for the northeast Georgia mountains, I’ve been living under someone else’s lease. The farmhouse that I rented in Demorest,
On Sunday, October 1, 2023, I became the interim minister of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bradenton, Florida. This is the first sermon I preached on that very same day to introduce myself and talk about how someone who prepared for academia was now in the pulpit. You can watch it on Facebook here. October 1,
I fear we’ve normalized the expectation that we have a right to never be offended. Human life – being a mixture of conscious and unconscious psyche and of emotionally intelligent and unintelligent people – affords us no such right. Life itself is offensive. It includes death. It includes flux. It includes predation. It also includes
For God does speak—now one way, now another—though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds… Job 33:14-15 The fragmentation I see around us in American culture (and even beyond) is distressing. We’re split from each other societally,
Yesterday was my first day without my dear, beloved Cotton, who has been with me for 14 years. I’m devastated and heartbroken. I knew it was coming, but it’s still such a shock to my system. I just can’t imagine life without his sweet presence. I always used to say that Cotton was closer to
In this video, I talk about the aspects that make up a good life well lived. I even gives shout-outs to The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, and the movie “The Village,” directed by M. Night Shyamalan. What does it mean to be truly human?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hebPiFk1E
In this video, I offer two original Christmas songs and a brief reading on this Christmas holiday, 2020.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWEgqhx7HcI
