christian nationalism. no joke.

the call of ezekiel, the call of the church.

The parable of the sower, but I have questions: is the church an invasive species? is it supposed to be?

Green Thumbs, Green Bananas, a title which has nothing to do with anything. Mark 4:26-34.

Broke, Broken, Broker. A new covenant for a changed relationship. Jeremiah 31. Preached at Louisville Presbyterian Theo Seminary.

a literalist and a metaphorist walk into a bar...

word games, mind games and the gospel of John 3:16.

This is eternal life. How about we doing so far?

"Like Moths (drawn to flames and chewing up your favorite sweater)." John, Love is Blind and that banner we always see at football games. A sermon for Lent 4.

Where were you when the BEARCATS came? Street theatre, righteous anger, and a church that ought always be at the ready.

Turning the Tables. A sermon on John 2 for Lent 2.

banned books, broken laws, and lord of the flies.

nine-tenths of something -- a sermon on Mark 3.

another sermon about dry bones, this time with a roomba.

rethinking this thing: on Ezekiel 37 for pentecost.

What does it matter to gain everything in the world, but lose your humanity?

Eye On The Ball. a sermon for Lent 3.

Elisha gave a future to Elijah's work. What happens to the movement of Jesus after Jesus? Well, I guess we do.

"Succession." the hbo tv show and a sermon for transfiguration.

On Not Fainting. In the midst of a world in a spiral, community. Walking without falling over, because we hold each other up. a sermon on Isaiah 40. Preached at St. John UCC, Louisville KY.

"words (and other songs by the Monkees)." Why do we have Deuteronomy? Do we need it? Is it really as boring as it seems? And, perhaps especially, what should we do with that land promise? Thoughts. And songs by the Monkees.

After the Whale. And after that. The story of Jonah and how it could possibly matter. (St. John UCC, Louisville, KY)

the laborers in the vineyard. a fitting place to end a short tenure.

What do Exodus and Oat Willie’s have in common? Reflections on going somewhere.

The Festival of Urgent Departure. What does it evoke? What to take along?

what’s behind, what’s ahead, what’s the difference : a sermon for preparing, for remembering.

Oscar-Winning Worship series: Schindler's List. A pearl of great price and ruminations on counting the cost -- or not.

Oscar-winning Worship -- A Beautiful Mind. Madness and genius, visions and reality. John Nash and Ezekiel.

Oscar-Winning Worship series -- Green Book. Learning to walk in each other's worlds, learning to be willing to learn.

Oscar-Winning Worship -- Ordinary People. A family in tremendous pain, worried over appearances and trying to make everything seem ok. Things that cannot ever be the same.

Pride Week, and to encourage folks to be downtown for the parade, Deb led a casual guitar worship... Hagar, Adrienne Rich, James Baldwin, and the reality of ostracism.

Learning to be who you always said you were: thoughts for progressive churches.

Oscar-winning Worship -- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Oscar-Winning Worship -- The King's Speech, Moses, and what will take for us to use our voices.

Oscar-Winning Worship: The Way We Were. Is nostalgia the way to do church? “It was never uncomplicated.”

Nostalgia, drunkenness, Mr Microphone and Lord of the Flies.

Come on, Baby, Light my Fire: a sermon for Pentecost.

Can David Allen Coe and Hozier inhabit the same sermon?

Rising Above -- thoughts for the last Sunday of Easter.

areopagus -- a noted preaching place or a political confrontation? Can a word from Adrienne Rich or James Baldwin help us out?

reclaiming the areopagus. a sermon for Easter 6.

scary visions. Catching up, the stoning of Stephen, and ‘have there ever been christians who got it?’

“To take steps toward the reappearance alive of the disappeared is a subversive act, and measures will be adopted to deal with it.”

Easter, resurrection, disappeared people under despotic rulers, and poetic thoughts of Charles Martin.

Jesus came to poke the bear; and the bear poked back. It happens every time.

Ezekiel, dry bones and the oddness of prophets.

"Burial Grounds," as Lent rolls on.

David, Saul, power and politics.

"Unconventionally Attractive" for Lent.

On the way to somewhere and wondering what God's doing.

Dying of Thirst. Us, them and Lent.

(The video is cut off, but the beginning is this:

Dante Stewart opens his book, Shoutin’ in the Fire, like this:

"There’s an old King James Version Bible sitting on my book shelf. It is black, rugged; the gold lining on the pages shine as the light hits it. The jacket is missing, and the threads have unloosened from one another over the years.

It has been tried. It has traveled across the South, across time. Now it sits on a shelf where it keeps the company of books written by Black folk. Black folk who have read a similar Bible, who have wrestled with it, been confused by it. Black folks who have held it as tight as I do today.")

Road Trip, Pt 1

The time Abram and Sarai left home without a plan. Influenced by Boesak, Urinetown and the general state of things.

Matthew’s congregation must have needed something; and his people weren’t so different from Jesus’ people in our world, in our own time.

We struggle like them, like Jesus, not to cave to the temptations of empire, struggle not to become the thing we and jesus despise — an exploitative, idolatrous church with no idea what matters or how to love god and love our neighbors.

What do we make of God? a sermon for Lent 1.

Jesus on a mountain with Moses and Elijah? The Church becoming what it was meant to be? Us being transformed by the renewing of our minds?

Like “Shakespeare in Love,” It’s a Mystery.

time to stop using the bible as a weapon?

"'Things We Don't Take Literally' for $500, Alex." -- a sermon on Matthew, divorce, name-calling, plucking out eyes and whatnot.

salty. lit. instructions for mending the world. a conversation with isaiah and matthew. plus gramsci and bono.

street, light. a sermon to move us ever closer to lent.

"Church has no idea what justice is.
Church has no idea what lovingkindness is.
Church has no idea how to walk humbly with God.
I imagine Micah of Moresheth would agree."

There is love and there is hyperbole.

Eat Pray Love. a sermon on Micah 6:6-8.

"We look for the smartest, most capable, most honorable individual we can think of and have a conversation. And in that person, perhaps we will experience the spirit of Jesus. and if that conversation goes through the night and into the dawn, so much the better. for us and for the world. and if that spirit begins to define us and shape our community and our world, well, that’s supposed to be the point."

"What We've Found" -- a sermon on Epiphany, with thanks to The West Wing...

a time for sages. not including Kevin McCarthy. "Let's get on with the shit show."

"Worship? or Flattery?" Matthew, Yeats, Heaney, Shires, and Herod. a sermon for Epiphany.

manger. a place to gather, a place to eat (if you read it as French). Plus A Christmas Vacation, dinosaurs, and that time I was in a christmas pageant.

"Welcome to the Manger" -- a sermon for Christmas Eve.

New York has a new rat commissioner. And I just rewatched Love Actually. Could any of that possibly be related to Isaiah, Hezekiah and Manasseh, or us?

Shoots and Ladders. a sermon for Advent II.

swords into plowshares. rakes into rifles. Nye, Chesterton, Isaiah, us.

Advent 1.

Then and Now

a trip to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery AL, yet another shooting in Colorado, and what’s the job of clergy? Jeremiah has some ideas…

Blessed. Or not.

all saints, the beatitudes, God’s shocking partisanship, and the macarena

Wee Little Tax Collector

Zacchaeus and the debts we owe

From a Distance

A pharisee and a tax collector. Or is it two tax collectors? structural violence and what’s to become of us.

Charles Blow. Kurt Vonnegut. Isabel Wilkerson. Kabul. Aleppo. Kharkiv. Tijuana.

Jeremiah lived in a place where self-determination was elusive and war was raging.

We live in precisely such a place. We are watching this nation fail in real time.

Then, Jeremiah bought real estate. What will we do?

A Bridge in Brooklyn, a sermon on Jeremiah for a random Sunday in September.

Facism grows all around us. But M*A*S*H turns 50, James Russell Lowell inspires us 200 years later, and workers are "quiet quitting." A story from Luke's Jesus about a manager who got fired and then rehired.

The Company We Keep, a sermon about resistance for Luke 16.

do good shepherds throw rocks? do we find what we didn't know was lost? can we quit speaking of one another in demeaning language?

The queen is dead (but not the global devastation), classified documents are strewn about a former president's home, and we're having rally day.

The Last Place You Look: a sermon on Luke 15

Labor Day, with thoughts about what we want to be when we grow up. And what God wants, according to Jeremiah.

"Hands on the Wheel," in this case, a potter's wheel.

gorging and craving. a vicious cycle. Jesus heals a man with dropsy, which I now understand. Then coaches people on social graces -- for economic purposes.

"plus a new profile pic." a sermon on Luke 14.

Grace Slick, Willie Nelson and being a better church. Plus the woman with the bent back.

"How Dare He." a sermon on Luke 13.

God keeps trying to tell us what is good... and we consistently ask: what else you got?

A love song becomes an indictment. "Ugly Fast," a sermon on Isaiah 5.

maybe atheists are on to something.

tell us how you really feel. a sermon on Isaiah for folks who think worship covers all the rest.

bonfire of the vanities, chasing after wind, the thing about postmoderns, a word about capitalism, and nobody wants to fish anymore.

For What? For Whom? a sermon on ecclesiastes for somewhere deep in ordinary time.

"Jesus, teach us to pray."
"Ok, here's a prayer for revolution."
"Don't you have something less controversial?"

What Jesus Meant. A sermons for Luke 11 and a frighteningly familiar time in our world.

"Reconstruction? Redemption? Resurrection? A reckoning. A realignment. A reconsideration of what is at the heart of things. It’s time. Something’s gotta give."

Amos, echolocation, the ravages of capitalism, and what accountability might look like.

A Breath of Fresh Poopoo. from Amos, chapter 8.

If we are people of Jesus, who would we not go out on a limb for?

Eyes on the Ditch. yet another sermon on the parable of the good samaritan.

"I worry that we let America do our thinking for us. That we don’t examine our own sacred texts beyond what the purveyors of American religion tell us. That we don’t explore the life and words of Jesus more deeply than the Sunday school lessons we had as children or the pronouncements of the most vocal, most public — right wing or ‘mainstream’ — preachers of our time. So much of the church’s voice is shaped by institutional christianity — the proper beliefs, the right political views, that protestant work ethic, or what we’re told is the politeness of keeping church and state separate by keeping politics out of faith discussions and vice versa. We cannot talk about what Jesus cared about because we’ve been trained not to."

Pledging a Different Allegiance. A sermon for the 4th of July.

"We do not need God codified in our laws to shape the world in the imagination of God. We just need to give a damn for the other beings who share the planet."

Pondering the fall of Roe and the rise of fascism -- as followers of Jesus should.

drop off. or pick up. a sermon for Pride Sunday.

watergate, bloomsday, tupac, roe on the line, covid, juneteenth (but still not free). No wonder Elijah was hiding in a cave.

Not So Small. a sermon to remind us.

"Jesus’ entire life in ministry has been filled with riddles, parables, puzzles and word games, plus miracles, healings, and odd comments about tearing down the temple and building it again with his bare hands. It’s not like he’s been a pedagogical picnic up to now, right?

So when he says 'I have more to tell you but you can’t bear it,' our heads kind of explode, and all I can come up with is that line from Shakespeare in Love that makes us laugh from its sheer repetition: I don’t know. It’s a mystery."

small. a sermon for Trinity Sunday. plus lionfish and a giant mushroom.

"Leftists, they say, liberals, they call us, progressives, radicals, ick, socialists, communists — we are all out to destroy the world with our … peace on earth, good will to all. It’ll never work, they sneer, and they say that we are drunk out of our minds."

Bunch of Sewer Rats. For Pentecost, and my first Sunday in a new place.

"How 'in it' are you? It is the difference between imagining the reign of God is a nice one-of-these-days kind of thing, or believing it is an idea that requires energy and engagement now — the very breath that we breathe."

Potato Potahto: a sermon on John 21 for goodbye (and Easter 3).

"Leaving out verse 33 is problematic. It could leave us with the impression that a life like Jesus is only about healing and feeding and telling puzzling stories and taking selfies with grateful people you meet along the way, plus the annual easter egg hunt for the children.

Joyfully Defiant, a sermon on Acts 5 for Easter 2.

"Someone will tell you this Easter that Jesus died because God needed a sacrifice. Please don’t believe them. Someone may tell you that Jesus died so God could show off the divine powers of resurrection. Please don’t believe them either. Jesus died for this reason only: because empire could not take it anymore. He was a threat to a way of life, and had to be dispensed with."

"Now What?" a sermon for Easter according to Luke.

"This is the road, y’all. This is the road. The road Jesus is on is the road we are called to be on: truth-tellers, issue-raisers, question-askers, stealth-infiltrators, donkey-borrowers, business-disrupters, coat-throwers, peace-squawkers, desperate pilgrims."

Ride On. A palm parade, one more time.

We are hardwired to worship, but we cannot focus. We are called to see the world, to respond to the world, but we cannot focus. We are invited, begged, to imagine something else, but cannot focus.

Poor. Always. a sermon for Lent 5.

A young person dreams of driving to the other America, where things were ok. But I don’t think you can get there by car.

A parable of a father and two sons. Or a father and a son and a granddaughter, ashes, an A&W, and a tea shop.

Turn This Thing Around. a sermon for Lent 4.

Having a vision can get you mocked, I guess.

Having a vision not wrapped up in the profits for rich people can get you killed — killed quickly, as a threat to the community order, or slowly as you grind it out on the production line, putting parts together or tearing animals apart or something in-between. But where there is no vision, wrote the preacher in Proverbs, the people perish. So, where do we get one?

"Ho, come to waters," says Isaiah. "Come, buy bread without money, come and eat, without money, without price."

GDP Be Damned. A reflection for Lent 3 on Isaiah 55.

My mind is all over the place. Perhaps that’s part of Lent, also. Chicken wings. Fake Army posters. Refugees. Holy or unholy intent. Nostalgia, amnesia. The things we remember poorly, the things we don’t remember at all. So the questions remain: who will we be? and what is Lent for?

Chicken Wings. A sermon for Lent 2.

Wildernesses are hard and relentless. The tempter will try to trick us, to draw us across threatening boundaries into metaphorical Montana.

And in those moments, there is life in remembering that dawn is never far away. That we don’t walk alone. That demons cannot take away what is essential to humanness — the desire for the heart of God.

Led in the Wilderness. A sermon on Luke 4, for the first Sunday of Lent.

Do you suppose jeremiah’s editors had ever seen a mesquite tree? or a desert willow, an ironwood tree, a date palm? a Boojum tree, which is a giant type of cactus apparently. A eucalytus tree?

Planted. A sermon about trees and water, plus congregations and hope.

I keep having conversations with pastors who are considering chucking it all — not for lack of vision, not for lack of purpose, not for lack of desire to bring about a new world, but disillusioned by the church’s complacency, the church’s failure to believe that it has any power at all to be a force for good, an instrument of that divine imagination.

We’re losing good people, eating them alive, taming them, I suppose, convincing them that there is no way out of the box.

The church needs to change. The church is called to change. or die.

The call of Jeremiah. a sermon on courage.

"There are cliffs’ edges and hometown detractors and people with a pretty big stake in the way it has always been. There is tradition and history, plus signs on the building and people who know us as we are, by this name, Woodside Church. But we see other visions, dream other dreams..."

With a little help from Billy Joel, Natasha Trethewey, Alla Bozarth, plus Isaiah and Jesus…

No Turning Back. a sermon for Epiphany 3.

Maybe this is an absurd take on a familiar bible story. But i’m so tired of this world and the answers we can’t get and the people we can’t move and the changes we can’t make.

“Hopeful, Imaginative, Absurd.” a sermon on that time Jesus turned water into wine.

Humankind, throughout history, is searching for a center that will hold. But the risk is that our eyes will pop out if we cling too much, our blood pressure will rise; we’ll become apoplectic; or our bodies will slam into the earth if we loosen our grip. We are afraid, distracted, seduced, easily talked into things like riding a merry-go-round at top speed until it catches fire. Is the center to be trusted? Is it even the right center?

a sermon on Isaiah 43.

January 6, Kwanzaa, the latest issue of the Atlantic, and other things to ponder.

She Did It. a sermon on the Wisdom of Solomon.

“Can you imagine that something new has been born and occupation is heading toward its end?” — that question seems to be more to Luke’s point than some attempt at updating Jesus’ baby book. Swords into plowshares is a really good place to start.

Sugar Plums Again: A Christmas Eve message of resistance based on Luke, but mostly on Micah 4.

Some words about my grandmother and what it means to show up.

"Myrtle's Hands" plus Mary & Elizabeth and the 4th Sunday of Advent.

"An ax wielded by an unknown, but perhaps grace-filled, hand has offered to cut us loose from the captivity of a dangerous legacy, to make us free to dream again, free to make a world new again."

pondering tornadoes, John the Baptizer and what's next.

"Without context, we end up with a very shallow Jesus and a meaningless faith based on a random set of morality rules that almost always have something to do with controlling other people and nothing to do with ensuring global well-being. But in context, we know better."

Paving A Way, a consideration of Luke's story of Jesus.

"I had half a dozen sources spread out on my desk yesterday, and could hardly make them agree with each other about this gospel, so different from the other three. Maybe John really is simply the gospel for mystics and potheads."

One Thing Leads to Another. a sermon for Reign of Christ Sunday.

Is Jesus talking about the end of the world? Or is Jesus talking about the end of the world as we know it? What does it mean to follow Jesus when revolution is in the air, when there is war in the streets?

"tear it down." reflections on Mark 13, the "little apocalypse."

"Today, Jesus has no patience for religious leaders. And for good reason. Cheaters, liars, extortionists, sweet-talkers, pompous jackasses dripping with sanctimony when the occasion suits, but first in line when there is a dollar to be had. Makes you wonder if shyster should be reserved for clergy instead of attorneys."

"Full of Themselves." a sermon on Mark 12, plus Emily Dickinson.

"On any given Tuesday, there are myriad ways we get sucked into complicity or complacency, myriad ways we might resist empire’s standard operating procedure."

Bets with Destiny: loving neighbor, with words from Jesus, Naomi Shihab Nye, and some women who survived Auschwitz by sewing for Nazis.

"We have a responsibility to the vision of God, and we are half-assing it most of the time."

"Chef's Special: thoughts on Jeremiah and what it means to be a remnant. With input from Anthony Bourdain.

"Where were you when the last glacier melted, when democracy fell, when capitalism finally ate all the children?"

And God makes a new covenant yet again.

“Places, Everyone.” a reflection on Job 38.

"It is easy to do — to turn scripture into something more palatable. And it is devastating for the world when the church takes the easy way."

Camels and Needles: Rethinking capitalism, biblically this time. A sermon on Mark 10:17-31.

"Faith is mystery and uphill and bad weather and battles we thought were done and answers we perhaps didn’t expect or choose. Maybe faith is us on a doorstep scraping our wounds with broken pottery..."

Scraping Together Integrity. a sermon on Job and all that ails us.

small seed, hostile world. and we keep showing up.

"Cherry Picking," a children's sermon, but probably not what you think that means.

"The man had his beard pulled out, got spit in his face, and punched in his back, but there is nothing in this passage that sounds like complaining. He is resolute, his face like flint, his jaw set, convinced that he is doing exactly what he is supposed to do and he is not alone in the doing. That’s the part I want us especially to remember."

Names, words, and how we show up.

"Face like Flint." a sermon for the day after 9/11.

"Even Jesus had to be reminded and challenged.... We don’t have time to be timid or polite. The creeps are creeping."

Reflections on Texas, Kavanaugh, and that time Jesus called a woman a dog.

A sermon on Mark 7, for Sept 5, 2021.

"What else have we been too frightened to say? We ask ourselves all the time here. And we have to keep asking. What else have we been too frightened to say? And if you’re watching today and you’re not a Woodside member, then I hope you’ll ask your own congregation, your own pastor — what is it that your congregation is called to be and do, but you don’t have the nerve? The world is screaming for the progressive church to find its voice again."

"Family Dysfunction: It's not a new thing." This one is for you, Senator Ananich.

"And I wonder if the value of religion for the cynical is in having someone else to blame. I need better. Our world needs better."

"Crimes Against Humanity." David, power and more trouble with scripture.

"A headless preacher wandering the villages, a phantom voice in joan of arc’s head, a cape, a tiara, a sack of pistachios, 20 loaves of barley bread, some flour to offset the poison, an ancient rite of CPR that revives a dying heir.

It doesn’t matter if they are factual. They are stories of life, stories of resurrection, stories of what is possible, stories of faith."

"And When We Share… " A bread sermon for July.

"In conventional understanding, both ancient and modern, even a good shepherd doesn’t matter all that much. Because either way, it doesn’t end well for the sheep."

"O Say Can You See?" Another July sermon.

karma, resurrection, a bad dinner party and john's head on a plate. or was it monty python? "The Heat of the Moment," a sermon for July 11.

"But I’m prepared to say that God has no need of, no deference for, national boundaries. God isn’t a market God. God cares not at all for flags and surely not for explosives..."

Toxic Nationalinity. a sermon for July 4.

"In so many ways our world is grieving. and pondering again the evil of which we are capable and the depth of loss we have experienced. Something profound is lost from our common life; perhaps it was never there. Grief changes us. Compels us."

A Miami condo, indigenous children, David and Jonathan. Pride Week, part 2.

Churches are famous for consigning people to hell for whatever doesn’t preserve church’s mystique and power — or whatever makes them afraid — or queasy. Some people fall for it. Some people still haven’t gotten over it.

Love is Love. A sermon for Pride Sunday about David and Jonathan.

"I’m really, really struggling with scripture this week. Not just this Ezekiel passage we heard, but the whole of scripture, the whole of faith, which is founded on a core principle that the land belongs to Israel by divine right. The land belongs to Israel by divine right, says our faith tradition. My conclusion this week is that I either have to find another way to read scripture, or I have to quit reading it."

Turn Me Loose. a sermon on Ezekiel 17.

"the best kind of government, except all the rest." Samuel tries to talk the people out of monarchy. spoiler alert: it didn't work.

Common Nonsense.

There is hope, more than a balm in gilead, which we also surely need, there is hope for a mended world, because the hem of God’s robe ravels and unravels, and travels through the world tying up loose ends and infiltrating dead things and turning us around at dead ends and insisting that life is life is life and it is for all of us. There is hope, eventually.

Raveling/Unraveling. Reflections on Palestine, Black lives, and the way the spirit of God is present. With a little help from Michael Coffey.

We will be barbarians or we will be socialists, they say — living in a world of concern for our neighbors’ well-being, or a living in a valley of bones, picked over and dried out by the worst we can imagine. Capitalism is a finite game and we are nearing the end… So, we must choose. Climate crisis, weapons and pandemics, economies and population trends all tell us that we must choose.

Where, then, will be our animating force?Whence will life come? …

It is perhaps the poets who will save us, who will help us see, and want, and live, and be, and connect, who will help us learn to save one another...

"What's in the Pit?" a sermon on Ezekiel for Pentecost.

"Church generally aims for equilibrium more often than equity, which leads us to pretending or denying a lot of the time."

Nakba, defunding police, and reconsidering the life of Jesus. "Unity Shmunity," a sermon for the last Sunday of Easter.

"Now, the rise of fascism. Our times have placed us firmly on the banks of the Rubicon. Do we support the vision of a world of enough? Do we align with the dream of God spoken by poets and prophets in every age? Will we stand for well-being and freedom, and against exploitation and slavery by any other name?"

Peter, Cornelius, and what we paint on the side of police cars. "The Rubicon," a sermon on Acts 10.

Maybe resurrection is that Jesus’ love and grit and power and wisdom and zeal didn’t die when they killed his body. Maybe the vision of God that lived in him escaped the tomb and found a new body. And maybe we’re supposed to be it, that new body.

A sermon for Easter, based on Mark.

covenant, pt 2. a reflection on jeremiah 31.

there's a brief audio loss in the first couple of minutes. here's what you miss:

"So, what happened to such an exercise in humanity? It was “brutally crushed by the armies of Versailles,” wrote the author, defeated in a week’s time, with between 17,000 and 25,000 people killed and more than 43,000 taken prisoner. Only six thousand managed to escape into exile in England, Belgium or Switzerland. The slaughter happened in late May of 1871. The entire experiment lasted 72 days."

apologies.

"Symbols matter. A serpent on a pole, to remind you where life comes from, but which became an idol replacing God in the people’s minds. Less faith, and more magic. Caligula in stone in the temple. Trying to divert the people to an empire-based worship; trying to convince them who was really God. US Army insignia on bibles, not-so-subtly suggesting who is really God, where power really lies. Because what better way to illustrate your dominance over everything than by taking over the religious spaces."

a sermon for Lent 4 and thoughts about idolatry.

"This story of Jesus is one of my favorites, you’ll not be surprised to learn. I love the brashness of this prophet, a fiery tirade from a man whose reputation centuries later seems to center on niceness far more than is warranted. I love there is at least one story we can cling to that says 'see? Jesus wasn’t taking shit anymore.'”

Jesus cleanses the temple. A sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Lent.

"Fred Hampton. Jesus. Two speeches that sound remarkably similar. Two agenda that appear remarkably similar. Black Messiah. Brown Messiah. Both fed people. Both dreamed of a better world. Both tell us something is required if we are to find the actual peace that we seek, if we are to create the kind of world we want to live in. Both murdered by the state, which was threatened by the revolution they advocated."

Lent II. Not too early to start talking about resurrection. "Betting our Lives": a sermon on Mark 8:31-38.

we still get so wrong what God’s imagination is about and how God designed a world of enough that has no space for exploitation or oppression our tyranny, yet here we are.

noah's art and sermon to begin lent.

"More challenging than a cloistered life, more satisfying than Black Sabbath at 78 speed…We are called and invited and shooed into a life of community and grace. The days demand something of us and give us an opportunity for something."

a sermon for Transfiguration.

This world is a challenge, faced with so many debilitating problems — all human-made.

But we are the way God works in the world. Whoever we understand God to be, whatever name we call. If the privileged are to be reduced to nothing, as Isaiah describes, as Mary and Hannah sing many generations apart, if the rulers of the earth are to be thrown into chaos, we are the ones who must do the work."

Just staying on our feet. a sermon on Isaiah 40.

"What would it mean to rebuke the demon of empire that lives among us? How do we take it seriously and then shut it up? And when we do that, what kind of panic might we spark in the wards of empire, those whose livelihood comes from exploitation and power?"

“authority always wins.” A panic attack and a sermon on Mark 1:21-28 as Epiphany winds down.

While one camp believes itself to be church and fights its holy wars for the love of its white jesus, we will continue to pay our highest attention to the brown palestinian refugee who invited us to think beyond empire, who called us to the twin pillars of welcome and well-being.

Vox Populi Vox Dei: a sermon on 1 Sam 3

There is a star in the metaphorical night sky that guides our way and gives us hope. We can flee from the darkness, as so many have done before in the face of despotic regimes. Or we can walk purposefully in the light of what is possible. But what we dare not do is stand by and pretend it is not happening, that it cannot happen, that it has nothing to do with us.

an epiphany reflection on wise men, Herod and us.

“I hope for clarity in 2021, to see what the blessing has to show; i hope for vigor to tell the stories and power to move the world; I pray for willingness to be unbound, adaptable, inventive. I pray for spirit, for peace, for dreams that we will remember when we awake.”

Unbound. a sermon for the 4th Sunday of Advent based on 2 Samuel 7.

“There are people who think the outgoing president is god, or sent by god, and many apparently believe he will not be ousted on inauguration day, but, in the lyrics of Handel (quoting scripture of course), he shall reign for ever and ever. And I’m confused how this brand of american righteousness has anything to do with the vision of Isaiah or the task that Isaiah claims for himself as a direct assignment from God…”

Garland Street, an Advent reflection on Isaiah 61 and some questions about who we mean to be.

“But resistance continues to be our task. With whatever artistic flair or guile and cunning we can employ, we prick the consciences of occupiers, undo the worst of the empire’s minions, counter our nation’s worst impulses. We find ways to resist. Even if it won’t bring an end to the occupation, it will remind us that we are powerful people made in the image of God.”

Making a Way. a sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent.

"The sky is not falling as far as I know. The world is not ending, as far as I know. But if they are, our comfort and promise is that the vision of God endures."

Where were you when it all blew apart? A reflection for Advent I, on Mark’s apocalypse and a falling temple (of democracy, perhaps).

Occupied land, people of faith feeling like exiles from the mainstream, a righteous reawakening and realignment that seems never to happen, and a whole world telling us that we’ve got it wrong. That we are naive or dumb or too dependent. Yet, here we are. Gathering for worship one more time.

“The point, after all…” based on Matthew 25, a parable of goats and sheep.

“This week, our stewardship theme is Offering as Defiance, and we call out one more time our contention that faith is about something else. We are called to be people of a different way, people who stand over and against the conventional wisdom that more is better, that the end justifies the means, that survival is for the fittest.”

It’s a parable from Matthew, and I’m thinking about Manager #3.

Today, we have election results, a giant sigh we can release together after an interminable administration hell-bent on chaos and corruption. Can we rest now? …Thoughts on the cusp of a new administration, and a parable we can’t really embrace. (Matt 25:1-13)

There is an election in just 2 days, and it will change the course of everything. It will solidify our march toward totalitarianism and release the forces of resistance, or it will unleash the hounds of white supremacy and perhaps ignite a new civil war.

This week will change things. What it will not do is save us.

So, “All Saints” is you and me, voting and praying and singing, giving offerings as an act of worship, and refusing to accept that nothing can change…

It may surprise you to know this, but America is not in the bible. It was not written about us, it was not written to us, it was not written for us…. A sermon on Cyrus and what exile looks like. Isaiah 45.

“Faith journeys can be difficult, painful; we are called to plumb the depths of our souls for meaning and humanity and grace; sometimes it feels like we don’t start with much, or we start with a hell of a lot of baggage that we’ve accumulated from all our false starts or wrong religious roads…”

“Pre-Wedding Jitters,” based on a Matthew 22:1-14.

“If there is a chance of revolution without violence, can we imagine brokering such a thing, calling for an end to the violence of wealth, call for equity and liberation for the ones who are crying out?”

Tenants’ Rights, or the parable of the wicked tenants.

“Our democracy is virtually crumbling around our ears; our historic national oppression of black and brown people is coming to a boil. The least we can do — the very least we can do — is step up in commitment to the well-being of one another. Not in an all-lives-matter kind of way, because that turns out to be a lie every time we say it; but in a way that seeks liberation at every turn. … What does it mean to say yes to Jesus in such a time, to show up in the vineyard prepared to work? “

“We need people who will reject the conventional faith that has lied to us about Jesus, has let us believe the church is always right, a church that has claimed for itself an eternal exemption from the rules about hoarding and exploiting.”

Jesus parable today is about a person in charge, the leader of the free world, and the cabinet and sub-cabinet that kept him flush in emoluments. The leader decided it was time to settle accounts. One translator calls it an audit; another calls it a reckoning. Whatever it is, we are relatively certain it is only going to go well for the guy at the top of the food chain.

“Reconciliation is hard. and hard to pin down. it’s about rebalancing power. it’s about taking responsibility, it’s about repaying what was lost or stolen. Reconciliation isn’t just kiss and make up.”

a story of joseph and his brothers. a story of us.

Boredom, frustration, fear. “What if the cave we perceive is just the beginning of our next thing? What if there is purpose that will give the cave meaning? or that will propel us from the cave in due time…?“

“Don’t Shoot Astronauts” - Elijah’s cave and where we find ourselves.

Dueling viruses, racism and covid, ripping our national economy to shreds, along with our delusions of the people we thought we were. How shall we re-emerge?

“All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, buy food and eat! Come, buy wine and milk, without money, without price!”

Socialism, Isaiah-style.

“I almost titled this sermon “when scripture is hard to hear,” but that seemed inadequate. The truth is that some of scripture is just triggering for people who have been enslaved, exploited, raped, trafficked, and cheated. This is one of those stories.”

reflections on Genesis 28-30

“Our three main existential threats at the moment are coronavirus, racism and the Trump presidency. And only one of those can be warded off by covering our noses and mouths and holding our breath until the danger is passed.” A parable of wheat and weeds…

Either Matthew needs a master class in storytelling, or we need a new relationship with scripture. The sower and the seeds…

“The freedom we celebrate is an affront and a mockery of so many of our citizens who live without freedom, without opportunity, without the right and means to pursue happiness.”

Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Public Enemy speak to a 4th of July celebration.

Hananiah seduced the people with popular patriotic dribble. Jeremiah resented him for it. and so should we…. All is not well. Ignorance accomplishes nothing. Fake solidarity accomplishes nothing…. The problems are deeper, the implications broader and more severe. Our actions have meaning. Our lack of action has meaning. Our spirits cannot be at rest until there is real peace, until all is really well. and not just for us.

A word to white women: We can no longer give Sarah a pass for her abysmal treatment of Hagar, claiming that she was product of a system or a victim of her time or whatever else we like to say that also bears on our own unwillingness to take responsibility for the time and system that have borne us, with all our fears and privileges and desire to stay above the fray. We are the fray.

“For George Floyd. For Ahmaud Arbery. For Breonna Taylor. For David McAtee. For a list of thousands, millions, over centuries. … There is spiritual health, mental health, physical well-being, emotional wholeness that comes from the dust-shaking, from the fist-shaking, from the walking.”

Does whatever that judge or mayor or cop or pastor just said sound like something god would endorse? No? Then maybe it isn’t. Maybe consider the source. Maybe recognize that human institutions are not really good substitutes for the imagination of God, not really good representatives of the desire of God that we all find a way to live and care for one another. Maybe consider the possibility that we’ve been had by the official people saying official things with official goals in mind…

I never claimed to be an optimist. And you all know me way better than that. I believe if there is a way for humanity to exploit one another, humanity will choose that. Our American dream is a hologram, and fear and greed are the posts holding up the projection screen. I’m not hopeful…

We are groping for god, said Paul. Called to speak truth to the Areopagus of our day – the places where power is negotiated, where war is planned – even war on drugs, on poverty, on crime, on a virus; the place where economy is brutalized, where workers are treated with the regard of spare parts in a world made of Legos, the place where the spoils of war are divided before the opening salvo has ever been fired.

There come these moments. Moments that change everything. Moments that invite resistance or incite mob rule. Moments that show us who we are. Even when we fail to see who others may be.

“We have thrown in with the worst we can imagine, and we are somehow expecting that it will not cost us more than everything. More than everything. ‘Jesus, whom you crucified,’ said Peter. ‘What are we to do?’ asked the people, who finally were seeing as if for the first time.”

"words (and other songs by the Monkees)." Why do we have Deuteronomy? Do we need it? Is it really as boring as it seems? And, perhaps especially, what should we do with that land promise? Thoughts. And songs by the Monkees. (St. John UCC, Louisville KY)

We’ve got this long history in church of making this whole Palm Sunday thing seem like a ticker tape parade, welcoming the returning astronauts or the championship team. This wasn’t like that. Hosanna! They shouted. Which means “for the love of god, get us out of here!” The people were desperate to get free from their occupiers. Hosanna! Save us! Deliver us! Rescue us!

Social poets know something. Luke, the gospel writer, knows something. Our living in these times affects how we hear the stories of the bible. We are being shaped by the absurdity of each new day of this trump administration. The church has one hell of a task to speak loud enough to make sure the stories get through.

People who study the grammar and tenses and construction of the stories of Jesus in the original Greek suggest that Thomas wasn’t just missing that day, but that he wasn’t among them anymore. That perhaps he had given up on the movement altogether. So it is maybe less a story about doubting, and more a story about frustration and disillusionment and throwing up our hands and moving on. We know how Thomas feels.

We celebrate resurrection, not because a body was missing early one Sunday, not because we’ve achieved some grand and glorious summit, but because every day, we wake up to the reality that life is possible, that we are beloved community, that love and imagination are part of the jesus package.

alliance of baptists’ annual gathering. Naboth had a vineyard…

The virus spreads. The coronavirus, but also the virus of economic injustice. At the pinnacles of power, there is diminishing humanity to be found. Ezekiel saw a valley of dried bones, sucked of marrow and rotting in their own self-importance…