Skip to main content

Posts

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A, "I Belong to Laurel Kearns," 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

Sermon 2/7/23 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 I Belong to Laurel Kearns I belong to Laurel Kearns! I know probably a third of you are here just to figure out what I mean by that. So, aside from teaching you about my true gift - how to write a catchy sermon title - let me explain.  A few weeks ago when we had our chapel service during Spring orientation, I asked our new students - and all our worship attendees - to think about the people who had brought them to Drew. Who are the friends and family members, the mentors and guides who helped you discern a call, make a decision, who encouraged you in the midst of doubts, challenged you to move out of your comfort zone, who helped you see gifts that could be developed in seminary, who supported you with time, with words, with money, with love? I invited us to name those people. Even now, you might be naming those people in your head - the people who have shaped and supported us.  I’ve been thinking, too, about the ways we are shaped in academia, an
Recent posts

Sermon for Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Year A, "Here Is My Servant," Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

  Sermon 1/8/23 Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17 Here Is My Servant I’ve been thinking a lot about our Christian concept of call in the last couple of years. One of the most important things my mom taught me about faith was that God calls all of us . Being called by God isn’t something that’s just for pastors, for preachers. No, she reminded me often that everybody is called - it’s just a matter of figuring out what it is that you’re called to do. So, I was always on the lookout for my call from God. Mom never told us being called by God would look like any one thing, and indeed, my siblings and I took very different paths. But, as seems to be somewhat of the family way, I slowly realized I was called to pastoral ministry. And I went to seminary, and I pastored churches for 17 years. And during my years of pastoring, I’ve loved talking to other people about listening for and finding and answering their call from God. I love helping people discern what God is up to in their lives. 

Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, "The Life that Really is Life," 1 Timothy 6:6-19

*I'm quite(!) delayed in posting this sermon, but I'm finally getting to it. Sermon 9/25/22 1 Timothy 6:6-19 The Life That Really Is Life Our text for today ends with a phrase I find so compelling, so thought-provoking. We’ll come back to what leads into it, but for now, we’re beginning with the ending. The author, a mentor writing to encourage a younger, emerging ministry leader, finishes this section with these words, this aimed-for conclusion:  “so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.” “Take hold of the life that really is life.” This is the goal. Now we have to figure out how our mentor tells us we disciples should get there. The phrase “life that really is life” implies that there is life that isn’t really life, and that we can, without realizing it, settle for this other life, this non-real-life life. Timothy’s mentor suggests that he knows how to tell the difference between non-real-life, and life that is really life, and how, then, to claim the l

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, "God is Change," Exodus 32:7-14

Sermon 9/6/22 Exodus 32:7-14 God is Change* I’m not sure our scripture text for today has made it onto many “favorite Bible passage” lists. I know it is not on mine! In this text, we see God’s reaction to what’s going on at the bottom of the mountain, the mountain where God has been talking to Moses, giving the law that will govern the people that God has just rescued from slavery in Egypt and led to “freedom.” What’s going on down at the bottom of the mountain, of course, is that the people, feeling abandoned by God and by Moses, come to Moses’s brother Aaron lamenting, “We don’t know what’s happened to that Moses guy who we’ve been following. He ditched us without explanation. So, please, make us some gods who will lead us, because we seem to have been left by the God we were following.” Aaron complies, and makes a golden calf, crafted from the donations of gold jewelry from all the people, perhaps items that were symbols of their enslavement. He declares the calf to represent the

Sermon, "Discipleship by the Sea: Encounter," Mark 14:26-28, 16:7

Sermon 8/14/22 Mark 14:26-28, 16:7 Encounter Pastor Beckie has shared with me that you’ve been in the midst of a worship series focused on “Discipleship by the Sea,” and she invited me to take up this week’s theme: encounter. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a language nerd - I’m really fascinated by the meaning of words and how words can have similar meanings but with slight differences that communicate a different tone. And so when I read this week’s theme: Encounter - I was intrigued. I think of “encounter” as a simple meeting between different people or groups. An encounter. But I looked up different meanings of the word, and indeed, there are some nuances that set the broader word apart from the word “meeting.” Although “encounter” can mean just a casual meeting, it often has the sense of unexpectedness . If you encounter someone in your travels, the implication is that the meeting was unexpected or unplanned. The movie Close Encounter of the Third Kind might pop into your head - e