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Showing posts from April, 2019

Sermon for Easter Sunday, Year C, "An Idle Tale?" Luke 24:1-12

Sermon 4/21/19, Easter Sunday Luke 24:1-12 Idle Tales If you had to place yourself on the spectrum from someone who believes things too easily, who is maybe a bit gullible, taken in by a story that isn’t true, to someone who is hard to convince, never believing without cold, hard, facts, where would you fall? Are you quick to believe? Or quick to be suspicious? I’ll admit that I fall pretty solidly into the latter category, or at least pretty far to that end of the spectrum. I like to fact-check. If I see something on facebook that doesn’t sound quite right to me, I’m your friend who looks it up on snopes, or googles for other sources to verify what you’ve posted. That’s my immediate reaction. I want to know your source of information, and whether I think your source is credible. What did we do before the internet? I guess we had to wait until we could take a trip to the library, or just decide whether or not we trusted whoever was telling us something to be giving us good in

Sermon for Maundy Thursday, "Do You Know What I Have Done for You?," John 13:1-17, 34-35

Sermon 4/18/19 - Maundy Thursday John 13:1-17, 34-35 Do You Know What I Have Done for You? I think the footwashing, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, is one of the most compelling stories in the gospels. It only appears in the gospel of John, and John seems to include it in the stead of Jesus celebrating the Last Supper with the disciples. Well, they eat a last meal together, but John doesn’t record Jesus imbuing the symbols of bread and cup with the meaning that they hold for us today when we celebrate communion. We don’t know why this is, when certainly, by the time John wrote his gospel, the last of the four gospels to be written, celebrating communion had already become a central focus of worship in the early church. We can’t know the answer. But what we have instead from John is a precious gift, not included elsewhere. When Jesus and the disciples get ready to share their last meal together, Jesus gets up from the table, and readys himself with a towel and basin,

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, "At the Table with Jesus: Zacchaeus," Luke 19:1-10

Artwork by Ayseluna Hockenbary Sermon 4/7/19 Luke 19:1-10 At the Table with Jesus: Zacchaeus I asked you to share about a time when you might have gone to some amount of expense or effort to see someone special - a celebrity or a special guest, or a performer. I’ll tell you about a couple of my experiences, both of which relate to Jesus Christ Superstar of course, my very favorite musical. I first saw the show when I was in junior high as part of a youth group outing. I think I’ve told you before that I immediately developed a huge crush on the actor who played Judas, and I immediately fell in love with the musical. I worked really hard to be able to see the show more than once a season, even though going from my home in Rome to the big city of Syracuse at the time was a major outing, and buying tickets to the show was costly. But although I would gaze at the actor who played Judas from afar, I absolutely would not go up and speak to him. All the actors came out afte