Psalm 100 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Thanksgiving is the one time when families that never give a thought to saying grace at the table on the other 364 days of the year, will expect it to happen over this meal. They will insist on not carving the turkey or doling out the cranberry sauce, until someone has given thanks. One Thanksgiving a family was seated at their table, which was laden with turkey and all the fixings. Before digging in,…
Matthew 25:14-30 The Parable of the Talents was never exactly one of my favorites. The way that my eyes glaze over at the sight of a spreadsheet reminds me that my management of the master’s portfolio might have been no better handled that of the unfortunate slave in this story. So, it follows that my fate would also have matched his. The parable tells the story of a master who entrusts three slaves with varying shares of his wealth, for…
Joshua 24: 1-3a, 14-25 The story that the Bible tells often reads like a family tree of faith. Scattered throughout the Old Testament and the gospels are genealogies, like mile markers along a road. Those are the passages that never get read in worship, and the ones that we most likely skip over when we read the Bible ourselves. Why take the time to wade through lists of people who most have never heard of, with names that few can…
From the Pastor’s Pen The season of Advent is typically viewed as a kind of countdown to Christmas. But the spirit behind Advent precedes the birth of Christ by many centuries to some of the darkest epochs of Israel’s history. Which is why some of the lectionary readings during Advent come from the prophets like Isaiah, who lived during a time of Israel’s subjugation by foreign powers and the exile of many Jews to Babylon as they waited in the…
They’rrrree Baaaack! There’s still a week left before October, but the Halloween decorations are already making their annual appearances. October is the month of the calendar where wearing masks and costumes is a cherished tradition. Trick-or-treating and costume parties give us the permission to experience the fun of dressing up as someone (or something) other than who we are. From Aladdin to Zombie, cute to creepy, there is a mask and costume suitable for channeling every person’s internal trick-or-treater. But…
After this, the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of…
