Sermons

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered

The disciples, having heard Jesus predict his passion and death for the third time, ask for greatness and glory. Jesus responds that to be great, one must become servant to all. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever

In today’s well-known story, those who would follow Jesus ask timeless questions. What is the relationship between wealth and discipleship? Or between virtue and eternal life? Who can be saved? Jesus answers with radical demands–and radical grace. As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran

While the good news of God’s grace is the humbling news that despite our stumbling ways, we are chosen and loved by God, such news has often bred an elitism of self-importance, an election to specialness. Even among the first disciples, Jesus had to rebuke this limiting notion of

Another World is Possible – Bibliography and book list from the September 19 lecture at United Church.

Another World is Possible – Bibliography and book list from the September 19 lecture at United Church.

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter

Today’s gospel lessons, concerning the Syrophoenician woman and the deaf mute is the answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?” Jesus becomes the living answer to the promise of Isaiah that God will restore creation. From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands

This Sunday’s reading concludes the six-week unit of John 6. The focus of this passage is on the choice of the community to receive the life Christ gives. Some turn away and some remain. Peter speaks for those who have received the gift of being fed by God in Christ, “To whom shall we go? You

Jesus uses an impossible metaphor not unlike the earlier use of being “born again” to underscore the tension between the commitment demanded by living in the new community gathered around Jesus and loyalty to a prior social reality. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you,