October 12, 2025

It is Thanksgiving weekend, and it is right and good that we should have communion on Thanksgiving weekend. I say that because in what’s called the Prayer of Thanksgiving and Consecration is an attitude of gratitude. There is thankfulness written right into the prayer at the very beginning. Remember the words, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” and the response from the congregation is, “It is right to give our thanks and praise.” Right there at the core of our most important sacrament is thankfulness to God.

The theologian the Rev. Dr. Margit Ernst Habib says these words of the sacrament are not as solemn as they may sound and tend to characterize not just some kind of lofty Sunday morning worship feeling, but every part of Christian living. That thankfulness ought to find its way into our mundane, ordinary, trivial and everyday life. So much so that we see it as our Christian duty to show ourselves as grateful to God with our whole life.

September 28, 2025

The topic this morning is listening to the call of God for correction. In each of the readings, we have today the psalm in the call to worship, the reading from the book of Jeremiah and the gospel of Luke reading, God calls to us. In Psalm two God wants to speak through Kings. In the Jeremiah reading God speaks through a prophet to the king. And in Luke God speaks to those who act like kings. Let’s break those down because in each there is a warning and a choice.

In Psalm 2, we hear that some kings are getting together and they think that they’re strong enough to break free of the bonds that God puts on them.

September 21, 2025

Let’s listen one more time to Jeremiah’s lament: 

“My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?”

This isn’t the voice of a prophet proclaiming with conviction, it is a cry from the gut. Jeremiah is undone. He has seen his people betray the covenant, chase after false gods, turn their backs on justice – and now they are reaping the pain of exile and collapse. He looks at the wound and he cannot stop weeping. It reminds me of Jesus approaching Jerusalem and weeping for the people who did not recognize the things that would bring them peace. (Luke 19:41-44)

September 14, 2025

By the time this passage appears in the gospel of Luke Jesus has built a community of followers that include a wide variety of people within the social and religious circles of Israel. It might surprise you to know that some of those followers were Pharisees and Sadducees. You see Jesus connects with them out of a deep shared love of the faith, handed down from Abraham and Sarah through Moses, David, and all the prophets. 

Because of this, Jesus actually agrees with the Pharisees and the Sadducees about who are “the lost” of Israel. The tax collectors, the prostitutes, the criminals, those who had sickness and those who did not care for the practices of the faith. These two parables …..

September 7, 2025

A discussion about shaping of our Lives in faith

When Jeremiah went to the potter’s house, he didn’t just see a craft. He saw an extraordinary image of hope. The clay that was being turned on the wheel would rise tall and sometimes collapse in on itself. This was the image God wanted to press upon the people of Judah. If the House of Israel followed his ways, nations would rise, if they disobeyed God’s ways, nations could fall. Ultimately, there was hope that things could be repaired and mended and all would be well.

August 3, 2025

Money is great; love is better. The sermon discusses the problems presented to a rich man concerning his obsession with his riches.