Sometimes a picture can tell a story about a particular time or event in a way that words can’t capture. As the anniversary of D-Day rolled around this year, I was looking at a collection of World War II photographs online and came across this one. It was taken on June 13, 1936–just about 80 …
How many of you have ever heard a sermon from the book of Nahum? Chances are you haven’t. It’s not a very popular book, nor does it appear in any of the lectionaries. It’s probably because, at base, Nahum is really a prophecy of God’s vengeance against the Assyrians and their capital city of Nineveh. …
About ten years ago, our bishop at the time had all the clergy in our annual conference read a book by business guru Jim Collins called Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t. I still have the book on my shelf and I’m guessing a lot of you have read …
Part 2 of the series “Major Lessons from Minor Prophets” It must have been frontpage news at the supermarket checkout counters in Israel, right next to the hummus and the Tic-Tacs: “Local Prophet Marries Prostitute” screamed the headline of the Israel Inquirer. “Holy Man Hosea Hooks Up with Hooker” winked the Samarian Post. You can …
Part 1 of “Major Lessons from Minor Prophets” Text: Jeremiah 1:1-10 We begin a new series this week on the Minor Prophets, which is a part of the Bible that many people, even preachers, tend to skip over. I mean, how many sermons have you heard on Haggai or Habakkuk, for example? They tend to …
One of the occupational hazards of being a pastor in a larger church is that a lot of people know you, but you don’t always recognize them. Many times at, say, the grocery store, I will see someone whose face looks familiar, like I know they’ve attended our church, but I don’t know their name. …
A Sermon for Easter Sunday We begin today with a quiz for all you history buffs out there. What happened on April 11, 1954? Actually, that’s a trick question. NOTHING happened on April 11, 1954, at least nothing historically significant according to a scientist at Cambridge University who developed a search engine to discover the …
Part 5 of “We Believe: The Nicene Creed” One of the things I’ve been noticing lately is that in clergy circles there is an overwhelmingly negative vibe about the future of the church—not just the United Methodist Church, but the Church in general. We are bombarded with statistics about the church’s decline; people are attending …
Part IV of “We Believe: The Nicene Creed” Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 One of the highlights for those going on a pilgrimage to Israel is a trip to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the ancient church that houses the traditional sites of Golgotha, the place where Jesus died, and the tomb in which he …
Part 3 of “We Believe: The Nicene Creed” Texts: Colossians 1:15-20; John 1:1-18 One of my favorite assignments as a young infantry officer in the Army was my stint as leader of the battalion scout platoon. The scout platoon was the reconnaissance unit, which meant that we spent a lot of time operating forward of …
Part 1 of “We Believe: The Nicene Creed” This week we began the season of Lent—a forty day preparation for Easter and the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from dead—the most important event in history and the foundation of the Christian faith. In a lot of ways, Lent is about going back to basics: …
Part V of “Redeeming Sex” Scriptures: John 8:1-11; Matthew 9:9-13 So, let’s review where we’ve been so far in this series. We began with a look at sexuality as a gift from God, part of our creation in the image of God in which we reflect God’s nature as community and in which we carry …
It’s no secret that our culture has undergone a sea change in our attitudes about sexuality during our lifetimes. I remember watching old TV shows, for example, where couples were depicted as sleeping in separate beds, houses seemed to have no bathrooms, and even the word “pregnant” made network censors nervous. That seems quaint today …
Transforming the Mind: The End of Sexual Identity Continue Reading »
Part III of “Redeeming Sex” Texts: Matthew 22:23-33; I Corinthians 7:25-35 Ask most pastors which they would rather do, a funeral or a wedding, and most will tell you that they would prefer to do the funeral every time. It seems counterintuitive—funerals are “sad” and weddings are supposed to be “happy,” so why prefer the …
Part II of “Redeeming Sex” A few years back there was a media report going around about the rock singer Sting who, according to the report, claimed that he was a practitioner of an ancient eastern form of Tantric sex and could “make love for eight hours a night.” This was big news in the …
Disoriented Orientations: When Sex Becomes an Idol Continue Reading »