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Sermon 11/1/09, Mark 12:28-34 Giving Thanks: For All the Saints All Saints Sunday is not a day I remember celebrating as a child in my congregation. In fact, I really don’t remember celebrating this special until I got into seminary, although I’m sure we did at my childhood church. But I was lucky enough...
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Sermon 10/25/09, Mark 10:46-52 Take Heart This week, my mother found out that she will need to have surgery on her ankle in January – surgery to fuse together the joints which have collapsed on her through the years. My family and I have been trying to put together a plan for her post-surgery – she’ll...
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Sermon 10/11/09, Mark 10:17-31 Be Challenged I’ve been thinking, over the last several weeks, in light of some of the powerful lessons from the New Testament that we’ve focused on in worship, that it’s amazing that we even read the Bible aloud and pretend to like it. I wonder why our very reading of...
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Sermon 10/4/09, Mark 10:13-16 Be Childlike Today we come to the third in a set of texts where Jesus draws children into the scene, draws children to the center of a circle of adult men, to the center of a circle of his most trusted colleagues, to the center of his teaching. In our first text two weeks...
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Sermon 9/27/09, James 5:13-20, Mark 9:38-50 Be Healed Today’s gospel lesson of those times when I feel like the author had a few scenes of Jesus’ teaching that he didn’t know where to put, and just sort of jumbled them together in one scene. We have several snippets in today’s text, words from Jesus...
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Sermon 9/20/09, James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a, Mark 9:30-37 Be Last I have to confess to you – it may not seem like it to you at first – but I’m actually a very competitive person. I like to win, and not so much even just to win , but to be the best . Now, I don’t mean that I will get upset and be a bad sport...
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Sermon 9/13/09, James 3:1-12, Mark 8:27-38 Be Followers This week, at the eighth anniversary of September 11 th , 2001, like many people, I thought about where I was and what I was doing when I first heard word of what was unfolding in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. I was in my second...
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From the lectionary this week: "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Mark 9:35b I've posted this quote before, but in light of this week's scripture text, I've had it on my mind, without being able to really work it in to my sermon: From Kent Carlson's...
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Sermon 9/6/09, James 2:1-17, Mark 7:24-37 Be Opened This week, we’re starting a new focus in worship, centered on asking ourselves the question: Who and what is God calling us to be ? Who are we meant to be, each one of us? Who are we meant to be as a congregation? Each week, through October, we’ll look...
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Sermon 8/23/09, James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Inside Out Are you all familiar with the story and music from Fiddler on the Roof? When I was in high school, I was in a community theatre production of Fiddler , and have most of the lyrics and choreography permanently imprinted in my mind. In...
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(Sermon 7/19/09, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a) God in a Box I told you last week that in the midst of this transition, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to say, “welcome.” Another thing that has been on my mind these days is the idea of “home.” Since I left for Ohio Wesleyan University...
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(Sermon 7/12/09, Mark 6:1-13) Welcome What does it mean to welcome someone? What do we mean when we say welcome, “you’re welcome”? It’s a word we use often, hopefully. My two year old nephew already knows how to say “you’re welcome,” although he occasionally confuses it in place with “thank you.” He...
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Sermon 6/21/09 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41 Open Wide Your Hearts I feel like I should have been able to connect in with the gospel lesson from Mark this week, set in the midst of a windstorm and waves on the sea with the disciples’ boat being swamped, what with the nearly nonstop rain we’ve had...
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(Sermon 6/14/09, 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17, Mark 4:26-34) The Eye of God Point of view. I think it’s somewhere during late elementary school where you first start learning about different points of view in writing. There’s first-person narrative, where the story is told by a narrator...
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(Sermon 4/12/09, Mark 16:1-8, John 20:1-18) Who Do You Say that I Am? This year, as I’ve been thinking about Easter, I’ve been thinking a lot about my recent Children’s Sermons during Lent, and the kids’ reactions as I’ve mentioned to them that we’re preparing for Easter, when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection...