Let’s talk for a minute about covenants. Covenants are often considered contracts of sorts. Some covenants are formal, and some are informal. Our Thursday Matters group has a covenant, where they agree to certain patterns of behavior and etiquette. And …
Some of you have heard that my eldest son attends school a little bit out of the area, and I’m usually the assigned driver to drop him off at school in the morning, and it’s pretty common for me to …
Epiphany 4B2024Mark 1:21-28 In today’s gospel, Jesus and the newly-called disciples enter the synagogue in Capernaum, apparently on the sabbath, so that Jesus can teach there. Suddenly, a man with an unclean spirit confronts Jesus asking Jesus why he is …
Epiphany 3B2024Mark 1:14-20 Today, Jesus catches his first disciples, Andrew and Peter. He observes them casting a fishing net into the sea, and Jesus says: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” So often, I have read …
Epiphany 2B2024John 1:43-51 Herb Chilstrom, the first presiding bishop of the ELCA, joined my home congregation when I was in high school. Since my father was one of the pastors of my home congregation in our small Minnesota town, Pelican …
Baptism of Christ B2024Mark 1:4-11 The gospels of Matthew and Luke both include Christmas stories, tales of Joseph and Mary, angels and shepherds. The gospel of John tells the most ancient of Christmas stories: In the beginning was the word …
Christmas 1B2023Lessons & Carols Near the end of the Christmas story, after Jesus is born, after the shepherds receive the good news of great joy from the angels, after the shepherds go with haste to find Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, …
Christmas Eve B2023Luke 2:1-20 Poet Robert Hayden writes in his poem “Those Winter Sundays”: Sundays too my father got up earlyand put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked …
Advent 4B2023Luke 1:26-38 In 1998, with both me and my sister in college, my parents opened themselves up to the possibility of a new call for my dad who was serving as an ELCA pastor in a small town in …
Advent 2B2023 Mark 1:1-8 The first verse of Mark’s gospel states: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Of course, because this is one of the gospels from the Bible, it makes complete sense …
Advent 1B2023 Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37 Here they are, the people of Israel, after the Babylonian Exile, towards the end of Old Testament history. They are back in Jerusalem after decades of slavery, religious and cultural desolation, and despair. All …
Pentecost 24A2023 Matthew 25:1-13 Today, Jesus tells the disciples a parable, describing the kingdom of heaven. Because upon first glance it appears to be a terrifying parable, I invite us to consider it in 3D. I need 10 bridesmaids, one …