Sermon: As You Wish

Sunday, April 14, 2019
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Palm / Passion Sunday

This is a story we have heard so many times before. Many of us grew up hearing it. Year after year, we follow Jesus on a Lenten journey to Jerusalem. And every year it leads us here, to the threshold of Holy Week. We read the story of his triumphant entry into the city, and we read again how the crowd’s shouts of “hosanna in the highest!” quickly turn into chants of “crucify, crucify him!” We follow Jesus all the way from a stable in Bethlehem to the cross and to the empty tomb.

This story is so well known and so familiar to the church that it’s hard to add much to it. Some friends of mine even asked me a couple of weeks ago: how do you preach on stories that people have heard so many times? How do you find something new to say? And I told them honestly: the Spirit works! But also, I can’t help but think of how many thousands of years we have been telling ourselves and our children these stories. Humanity has a long term relationship with the story of salvation in Jesus Christ. And so, as old as this story is, it somehow keeps being new. Each year that we tell it again, it seems to speak to us in a new and different way.

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May 10, 2019 2

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.

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.

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March 24, 2019 1

Sermon: Rebels Without a Clue

Sunday, March 17, 2019
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Second Sunday in Lent

In our gospel reading for this morning, we catch a glimpse of Jesus in a very sassy mood. The pharisees come to him with death threats from Herod, but Jesus basically just brushes them off. He calls Herod a “fox” and tells them to say, “Look Herod, I don’t have time for you right now. I’ve got work to do. But hey, I’ve got an opening in three days, so if you still want to kill me, you can come on down to Jerusalem and do it then – because we all know that no prophet can be killed outside of Jerusalem, amirite?”

But his snarky comments are immediately followed by a tender, heartbroken lament: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Despite his sarcastic remarks, we see in Jesus the image of God as a mother: a mother whose heart is breaking over the way her children have rejected her and turned away from her. God the mother has had it up to here with her wayward children, but she still loves them so much it hurts.

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March 18, 2019 3

Sermon: Rehab

Wednesday, March 6, 2019
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Ash Wednesday

This past Saturday, I was sitting in a coffee shop working on my sermon for Sunday. I’m kind of a chatty person, as you’ve probably noticed, and easily distracted, and I ended up striking up a conversation with a woman sitting at a table near me. We’ll call her Danielle. It pretty quickly became clear to both Danielle and me that this was one of those conversations that God himself seemed to have arranged. Danielle had been looking for a new church home and was grateful to unexpectedly find herself in conversation with a pastor. And she shared with me some of the struggles that she has been facing recently.

She shared that her 23-year-old son – we’ll call him Tyson – is addicted to meth and that she and her husband had just taken him to a treatment center earlier that week. She talked about the pain she felt at seeing her son being slowly isolated from everyone else because of his addiction. She said that the other members of their family had already given up on Tyson – even his own father. He was angry at her for taking him to the treatment center, but she was worried that he was going to end up dead if he didn’t go. She talked about how hard it can be to love someone who is addicted, and how challenging it is to walk the line between loving someone and enabling them.

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March 7, 2019 2

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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March 7, 2019 6

Sermon: Rude Awakening

Sunday, March 25, 2018
Peace Lutheran Church, Las Cruces, NM
Palm/Passion Sunday

Keep awake! Enough! The hour has come! At once! Immediately! Now! Now! Now!

There is no time to waste in Mark’s telling of the passion story. Even the language he uses is full of movement and urgency. After Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem, greeted with palm branches and shouts of “hosanna!” things go downhill in a hurry. He teaches in the temple about the kingdom and the true worship of God, but it makes the leaders of the people so angry that, at the beginning of our reading for today, they are already looking for a way to arrest him and kill him. Jesus had only been in Jerusalem for a few days! Continue reading “Sermon: Rude Awakening” →

March 25, 2018 1

Sermon: Path of Life

Sunday, March 4, 2018
Peace Lutheran Church, Las Cruces, NM
Third Sunday in Lent

I have to confess, dear congregation, that one of my first reactions to the texts for this week was a very human one: “Ah, the ten commandments… hmmm… rules… yaaaay.” All of you are probably much better Christians than me and didn’t have that kind of reaction, haha. But still, there is definitely something about reading the commandments that makes us brace ourselves to be reprimanded. We anticipate all those finger-wagging thou-shalt-nots almost as a kind of public scolding. And I mean, come on, we’re three weeks into Lent – we’ve already admitted that we are dust and we’ve heard the call to rend our hearts and to repent of our wicked ways and to return to God with fasting and weeping and mourning. At this point, reading the ten commandments almost seems like the lectionary is just rubbing our noses in how much we have fallen short. Continue reading “Sermon: Path of Life” →

March 5, 2018 6

Sermon: Bitten Again

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” →

February 15, 2018 1

Sermón: Renunciando el renunciar

“Domingo de Ceniza” / “Ash Sunday”
5 Marzo, 2017 / March 5, 2017
First Lutheran Church of Logan Square

Mateo 6:1-6, 16-21
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Hoy, empezamos el tiempo de la Cuaresma por observar el Miércoles de Ceniza – o en este caso, el Domingo de Ceniza. La Cuaresma es un tiempo de arrepentimiento, en que renovamos nuestra devoción a la vida de fe. Pero para muchas personas, este tiempo se ha convertido en un tiempo de abnegación solamente. Ha vuelto a ser un tiempo de castigarnos a nosotros mismos y de sentirnos culpables por fallar en vivir vidas perfectas. Igual que los “hipócritas” en nuestro evangelio para hoy, muchos de nosotros pasamos la Cuaresma orando y ayunando – tal vez renunciamos al azúcar o chocolate o a otras cosas que nos gustan. Pero a veces puede ser fácil perder la razón *porque* hacemos estas cosas.

Tal vez ustedes no. Pero yo sé que para mi, ha sido difícil. Por muchos años, mi práctica cuaresmal ha sido renunciar algún tipo de comida. He renunciado al azúcar y al soda y carbohídratos. El año pasado, para la Cuaresma, comí sólo verduras crudas y nada más. Fue muy poco saludable. Y siendo honesta, lo que quería hacer en realidad era continuar mi resolución del Año Nuevo de bajar de peso.

Aunque intentaba convencerme a mi misma que lo hacía para Dios, la verdad es que lo hacía para mi y para quedar bien con los demás. Como los hipócritas en nuestro texto, me preocupaba más por lo que pensaban los demás que por lo que pensaba Dios. Para mi, la Cuaresma no era un tiempo de arrepentirme y volver a Dios, sino un tiempo de castigarme. Continue reading “Sermón: Renunciando el renunciar” →

March 8, 2017 0

Sermon: Breaking the Cycle

(Early) Sermon for Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2017
“Sermon Design and Delivery” course
LSTC

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you fast, do not look gloomy, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, annoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“Do not be like the hypocrites,” Jesus warns us in our gospel text for today. Unfortunately, it seems like there’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around these days – especially if you’re attuned to what’s happening in our country’s political discourse. Politicians and public figures claim to be pro-life, while adamantly supporting the death penalty and opposing gun regulation, despite tens of thousands of gun-related deaths annually. Others claim to be advocates for a quality public education system while proposing plans to dismantle the entire Department of Education. Still others are doing everything in their power to slam the door on refugees and other immigrants seeking safety and opportunity, while ignoring their own families’ personal – and recent – histories of immigration. Hypocrisy is the bread and butter of our world. Continue reading “Sermon: Breaking the Cycle” →

March 8, 2017 0

Feet are Gross: A Maundy Thursday Sermon

Maundy Thursday / Jueves Santo
March 24, 2016 / 24 Marzo, 2016
Saint Andrew Lutheran Church/Iglesia Luterana San Andrés
John 13:1-17, 31b-35 / San Juan 13:1-17, 31b-35
(English & Español)

This semester at seminary, I’ve been taking a preaching class, and last week, one of my classmates – Denise – preached a really awesome sermon about this evening’s gospel text. She focused on Jesus’ act of washing his disciples’ feet, but what really stuck with me about Denise’s sermon was that she didn’t just preach it; she actually took off her robe, poured water into a basin, and made it very clear that she had every intention of actually washing our feet.

That kind of freaked me out a little bit. I mean, baring your feet and letting someone else touch them is awkward under the best of circumstances – but in my case, I actually have a skin infection on both of my feet and one of my toenails that’s kind of embarrassing and gross (in fact, it’s actually really hard to even admit it here), so I was mortified by the idea of taking off my shoes and socks and showing my gross feet to everyone.

In our gospel story, the disciples – especially Simon Peter – were also a little put off by Jesus’ act of footwashing. Obviously, we don’t know whether any of them suffered from any sort of skin infection, but after roaming around the streets of Jerusalem and the Judean countryside in sandals, it’s a pretty safe bet that their feet didn’t exactly smell like roses. It’s understandable when Peter declares to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet.” Continue reading “Feet are Gross: A Maundy Thursday Sermon” →

March 26, 2016 0

Sermon: Predicando a los Zorros / Preaching to the Foxes

Domingo, 21 de febrero, 2016
Segundo Domingo de Cuaresma
Iglesia Luterana San Andrés, West Chicago, IL
San Lucas 13:31-35
(English translation follows below)

Jesús está predicando en Galilea, sanando a la gente, y expulsando demonios cuando los fariseos se acercan a él. Le amenazan a Jesús, diciéndole que Herodes quiere matarle, y le mandan que huya de la región. Pero, increíblemente, Jesús no les hace caso. De hecho, llama a Herodes un zorro y hasta sarcásticamente sugiere que Herodes lo busque en tres días para matarlo a Jesús en Jerusalén. Continue reading “Sermon: Predicando a los Zorros / Preaching to the Foxes” →

February 22, 2016 0

Sermon: Chicks Gone Wild

Sunday, February 21, 2016
Second Sunday of Lent
St. Andrew Lutheran Church, West Chicago, IL
Luke 13:31-35

Today, we continue our journey through the forty days of Lent. And we walk alongside Jesus, as he makes his way inevitably toward Jerusalem.

In our gospel reading for today, Jesus is totally focused on his goal. The pharisees come to him with death threats from Herod, but Jesus brushes them off. In fact, this is a classic example of what I like to think of as “snarky Jesus.” Jesus calls Herod a “fox” and responds to his threat by basically saying, “Look Herod, I don’t have time for you right now. I’ve got work to do. But hey, I’ve got an opening in three days, so if you still want to kill me, you can come on down to Jerusalem and do it then – because we all know that no prophet can die outside of Jerusalem, amirite?” Jesus basically dismisses Herod and the pharisees because he is so focused on reaching Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem is the stage on which the grand drama of the passion narrative will unfold. Continue reading “Sermon: Chicks Gone Wild” →