Sermon: Holy Sh*t

Sunday, March 24, 2019
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Third Sunday in Lent

Many of you have probably noticed the paper chain that’s starting to spread across the back of our sanctuary.  For those of you who haven’t made it to our Wednesday evening services yet, this chain is part of what we’ve been doing on Wednesday nights.  Each link of the chain is a prayer, and every week the chain grows as we add more and more prayers.  Every week, there are different interactive prayer stations around the sanctuary, as a different way of engaging with the text and with the practice of Lent.  The prayer chain is meant to be a community practice of prayer that shows how our prayers connect us to each other – and how what we do together here leads out into the world. 

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This idea of interactive prayer stations for Lent was actually part of the project work I did at my internship congregation down in New Mexico.  Each week at the midweek service, at least one of the stations we had set up would be some kind of activity to help people to dig into the text for that week in a more tangible, hands-on kind of way.

Continue reading “Sermon: Holy Sh*t”

A Painfully Candid Lenten Reflection

CN – anxiety, depression

Christians around the world began their observation of Lent yesterday on Ash Wednesday.  Lent is a season of repentance and return to God. It’s a season in which we confess that we have not lived up to being the people God created, redeemed, and called us to be.  We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.  We have been neglectful in our care of creation.  We have been selfish and have hardened our hearts to the suffering of the vulnerable around the world.

We read the words of the prophet Joel, who implored his people, “Return to the Lord your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” We are called to turn back to God with our whole heart, to experience God’s grace and love anew – not unlike the prodigal son returning home to his father’s joyous welcome.

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Sermon: Bitten Again

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Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Peace Lutheran Church, Las Cruces, NM
Ash Wednesday

Today, we mark the beginning of Lent, the long, slow march toward Christ’s death on the cross. As I’ve been reflecting on these texts once again this week, I’ve found myself noticing just how many words we encounter this time of year that start with “re-”: repentance, regret, reconciliation, remission, return. Among these words, one word in particular grabbed my attention:  the word “remorse.”  When I read the word in Spanish – remordimiento – it occurred to me that the literal definition of “remorse” is actually “to bite again.” As it turns out, much like my cat, Lent is a season that bites. Continue reading “Sermon: Bitten Again”

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