2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c Psalm 111 2 Timothy 23:8-15 The events of the past few weeks have taken me back to the early 70’s when the suffix “gate” started to be added to every kind of scandal imaginable. I was …

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 Psalm 37:1-9 2 Timothy 1:1-14 I have been a serious Anglophile since holding a season tickets to a small theater’s Shakespeare series when I was in high school. Pretty much anything on television with a British accent …

This week’s lessons: Psalm 113 Amos 6: 1a, 4-7 1 Timothy 2:1-7 Luke 16:1-13 I have been enjoying Ken Burns’ newest docuseries on country music. One of the many wonderful stories was about Charley Pride. Pride was not the first …

Amos 8:4-7 Psalm 113 1 Timothy 2:1-8 Luke 16:1-13 My brother lives in Florida and has exchanged blizzard readiness for hurricane readiness. He lives in the central part of the state so all he has really seen is a lot …

Psalm 51:1-10 Exodus 32:7-14 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-10 Ben Weaver owned the only department store in Mayberry. He also owned a lot of property. He was probably the wealthiest man in town due in no small measure to his …

Philemon 1:21 Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Psalm 1 Luke 14: 25-33 Last month, there was an observance of a most dubious event: the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slave ship to the colony of Virginia. To be perfectly accurate, …

Psalm 112 Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 Luke 14:1, 7-14   Two startling revelations made it into the news this week: Kim Kardashian-West revealed that when she was younger she became addicted to fame and money and Miley Cyrus concluded that after …

Isaiah 58:9b-14 Psalm 103:1-8 Hebrews 12:18-29  Last week I departed from my usual preaching style to clarify some misrepresentations of a resolution from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Assembly in Milwaukee August 5-10. The resolution approved by the …

My father was an only child, but his father had four brothers and a sister so there was a crowd at family reunions. The one I remember most took place in the summer of 1964. I remember the date because …

Genesis 15: 1-6 Psalm 33: 12-22 Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16 Luke 12: 32-40 43 years ago, one of the first classes I took in seminary was on the varieties of ways houses of faith communicated their message. I chose to …

I have been making preparations to retire this fall and one of the required steps was filling out a lot of paperwork regarding the pension plan that I have been a part of for over 37 years. So it was …

You probably have heard the old saying, “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” Consider one of my nieces in Canada. She has had some health concerns and was finally diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. No …