Matthew 25: 1-13 (November 12, 2023) For thousands of years, humans have built spiral-shaped labyrinths. You may think that a labyrinth is just like a maze, but where a maze often has dead-end paths, labyrinths do not. The pathway of…
Matthew 5: 1-12 (November 5, 2023, All Saints Sunday) Matthew's Focus We shouldn’t think of the Gospels as being like the transcript of a news reporter who was present at all of the events and recorded them just as they…
John 8: 31-36 (October 29, 2023) Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience…
Matthew 22: 15-22 (October 22, 2023) I watch a lot of animal rescue videos, especially from an organization called Hope for Paws. They’re always getting calls from people who report animals who’ve been stranded or abandoned. Often, the dog they’re…
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…
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…
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…