Naming God’s Story through 150 Years of Brown Memorial
Maybe that’s why naming God is so difficult for liberal people to do in 2021. We seem to have inherited some dualistic idea that God’s activity is always attached to the purest of human action. So we’ve learned to tell whitewashed, heroic stories about ourselves on the one hand, or tear down any less than perfect action that has been taken on the other, instead of recognizing that God is involved in working light through our messes, our own mixed motives, working good out of what is incomplete in us.
Habits of Faith: Proclaiming
“Habits of Faith: Proclaiming (I)” One of the hardest things about being a Christian is the embarrassment and offense I experience at the beliefs and actions of other Christians. It seems like every week I’m asked to explain Christian support for misogyny, homophobia, and racism emanating from some Christian pulpit. Or explain why some Christians […]
Habits of Faith: Hearing
When we gather each and every week we are literally gathering around this book. Which is weird. There’s no other area of your life where you would possibly value anything else in a similar fashion. No one goes car shopping and asks to get the oldest beater on the lot. No one goes to the […]
Everyday Wisdom
The book of James seems so full of contradictions. “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” James writes and then goes on to call his listeners murderers and adulterers. The writer calls his own people sinners and double-minded then later pleads with those same people not to […]
Watch Your Mouth!
“Watch your mouth,” my mother said. “If you speak like that again, I’ll wash it out with soap.” Nevertheless, round about age 13, I persisted. I had been used to the smell of Ivory soap for most of my childhood. But the taste was tough to get out of your mouth. It was a very […]
No Rescue in Sight
It’s a Brown Memorial kind of scripture fest today. What counts to God, according to Jesus isn’t your ritual acts by themselves. What counts to God is your ethical behavior – the things that come out of your heart and flow into the world: the way you relate to other people. Be doers of the […]
When God Doesn’t Need Your Help
David wants to build a house for God, but God doesn’t want David’s help. It’s not that God thinks a house is a bad idea. God says, yeah, I’ll take a house later. I just want your son to build it, not you. Recognizing this inconsistency, some scholars have argued that this part about […]
Complete Power
It seems ironic that the lectionary passage today speaks of strength through weakness as our nation celebrates Independence Day, a day full of parades, flags, and cookouts. On a day we celebrate the successful victory of our nation over the British Empire, Paul gives us this phrase to ponder: “whenever I am weak, then I […]
Open Wide (Y)our Heart(s)
Before I begin my sermon, I want to acknowledge where we are. We are celebrating Pride, Juneteenth, and Father’s Day this weekend as a culture. Narratives around the joy and struggle of this day for lgbtq rights may fill our minds this morning. Narratives around symbolic change, such as a Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday […]
Those Who Dream … Persevere
Has anyone heard of the Chinese term revenge bedtime procrastination lately? (1) It has picked up more traffic on Chinese social media lately due to the pandemic. Allow me to describe it to you. It is close to your usual time on a weeknight to get ready for bed. Instead, you do not fall asleep. […]