Sermon from 5/29: On the 7th Day, God Rested

This sermon was preached at Hamline Church, using the text Genesis 2:1-3 (the 7th Day):

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

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Embrace the Awkward this Palm Sunday–our faith needs it.

Palm Sunday doesn’t feel good, to stand outside your building, looking around to see who in your neighborhood is watching you. It doesn’t feel right, to do ‘churchy’ things in a public place–where the ancient rituals we take for granted are visible for anyone to judge. And if we forget how to have that feeling, we forget how to be truly critical of our faith.

The Transfiguration is about Peter–and imperfection.

And here is Peter, awe struck at his teacher enshrined in light—God, he’s sure that this is it, this is perfection, this is the moment they’ve all been waiting for–and, then, he sees the two men turn, Moses and Elijah, turn away from Jesus–and he cries, “Wait! It is good for us to be here! Let us build three dwellings—let us stay—let us be here, in this moment in this glory–please—don’t leave me.”

Talk to your youth groups about Islam. Do it now.

Youth Directors, we need to talk seriously about Christianity & Islam. We need to model respect, honest inquiry, and most importantly, an informed understanding of the basic beliefs of God’s many children. In all this mess, we need to give them a foundation to stand on.
You are their faith leader, and it’s your job to talk to them about faith–especially, now, other faiths.

10 ways to describe your progressive Christian faith without saying “But I’m not…”

How many times have you started a conversation by saying “I’m Christian, but I’m not…crazy/fundamentalist/mean/convinced that there is a war on Christmas”? It is always really icky-feeling, isn’t it?

As progressive Christians, we have GOT to get rid of this precursor to all that we are. By speaking like this, we are only reinforcing that normative Christianity IS crazy/fundamentalist/mean/convinced that there is a war on Christmas–that we are the outliers.

And “War on Christmas” Christianity is not normative–it is not the true Jesus movement, it is not our religion. The way of truth and life, the way of resurrection and restoration and reconciliation, THAT is our religion. Let’s start talking about ourselves as if that’s true.

So, here are some ways that we can describe who we are that don’t begin with “But I’m not…” (more…)

Sermon from 9/13: Psalm 19 and Faith amidst Chaos

A sermon delivered at Hamline Church on 9/13. The text was Psalm 19.


May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you—my rock, and my redeemer.

The final lines of this psalm are a long standing traditional prayer in both the Jewish and Christian traditions. For centuries—millennia, maybe, preachers have uttered these words to ask God to help them say something true to their faith.

And so I, too, pray: May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you—O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer.

And I pray that, because these days, I feel like I need both a rock, and a redeemer.

We all need the words of our mouths, and the meditations of our hearts, to point towards a rock and a redeemer. There is a sense of chaos that prowls around my normal, day to day routine. The news of the outside world is disturbing. And it lurks out there, peering into my mundane errands, breaking out, moment to moment.

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You can’t break God–Forgiveness, Failure, and Church

To ask for forgiveness does two things: it reminds us that ultimately we can still press on, and it reminds us that our failures aren’t going to break God. God won’t break because there’s a typo in your bulletin. God won’t break because your Profoundly-Important-and-Somehow-Totally-Useless Committee is mean, obstinate and unwelcoming. God won’t break because of your church’s hypocrisy. Nothing in this world can break God–not even crucifixion.