Proclaim by Word and Example

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 27, 2024 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were:  Job 42:1-6, 10-17,  Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22),  Hebrews 7:23-28, and  Mark 10:46-52. So I’m not a fan of the horror movie genre in general but I do love dystopian fiction. One monster that featured in both science fiction and Halloween-y stories is the zombie - the reanimated undead who go around trying to eat and/or infect people. If you watched or read any zombie stories, then you know there’s this classic trope that happens in pretty much every zombie flick. One member of the hero’s party - the friend, the mom, a survival buddy - gets bitten by a zombie but they don’t tell anyone. It’s only later, at a particularly dramatic moment, that they reveal they’ve been bitten but by then it’s way too late - now they’ve endangered everyone by hiding their wound. Maybe they even start turning into a zombie right then. I love how the trope is played out in the zombie par...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 20, 2024 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for the sermon were: Job 38:1-7, (34-41),  Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b,  Hebrews 5:1-10, and  Mark 10:35-45. Last week on our family walk, my two year old and three year old were pointing out every huge truck that passed by - dump trucks, crane trucks, and carry-car trucks, always a favorite. “That truck is almost as big as my head!” my daughter would exclaim. “That truck is as big as my head!” my son would reply excitedly.  It’s not until four or five years old that most children are really able to understand “big,” bigger,” and “biggest” - and not until seven years old when most kids will consistently be able to order a sequence of objects by size. It’s why really little kids will try to fit their whole bodies into tiny matchbox cars. And why a toddler will often tell you that a tall, thin glass has more water in it than a short, fat one, even if they just saw you pour the same a...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 13, 2024 in St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were: Job 23:1-9, 16-17,  Psalm 22:1-15,  Hebrews 4:12-16, and  Mark 10:17-31. Appalachia has been on my mind and heart and prayers quite a bit lately, especially the swaths of Tennessee and North Carolina hardest hit by Hurricane Helene. My own first encounters with the region were in high school, when my church youth group served with the critical home repair ministry, the Appalachia Service Project, for a week each summer. Later in college, I worked as a summer staffer for that same ministry, this time hosting the groups of churches who’d rotate through our center each week to do basic repair work on homes and trailers in the surrounding hollers. As staffers, we’d oversee and assign the multi-week projects, so we’d get to know the families we were serving pretty well. That summer - that work and those relationships - forced me to confront the heart-breaking comp...

This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 6, 2024 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for the sermon were:  Job 1:1; 2:1-10,  Psalm 26,  Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12, and  Mark 10:2-16. That is not the Gospel I would have chosen for my first sermon with my new church, if it was up to me. It’s a doozy on any Sunday but especially when you don’t know the people you are preaching to very well. I don’t know who among you has been hurt by divorce, and who has been saved by it. I don’t know who struggles with the boxes of male and female, or who has been wounded by the Church’s historically strict vision for what marriage should or can be. I don’t know how this passage has been preached or interpreted to you before - full judgment or with abundant grace. But if this passage feels like a bit of a trap, it’s because it is one. The Pharisees pose this question about divorce to Jesus precisely because it was contested and controversial, in their day and still in ours. The leaders are...