This sermon is based on Galatians 3:26-29

In case you hadn’t guessed from the 1500 words I shoved into your email inbox on Friday, there are two sermons I want to give today; two thoughts are vying for first place in my mind as I listen for the word of God to share with you this morning.  Today is the day of my daughter’s baptism. In just a few minutes, Evelyn will be marked with the sign of God’s grace and her place in the kingdom, and whenever I think about what is about to happen, I am filled to overflowing with words of gratitude, wonder, hope, and humility.

At the same time, another word is burning in my bones, a word that has come to me through you.  Continue reading →

This sermon is based on Mark 12:13-17

I’d like to start this conversation by inviting you into a thought experiment.  Imagine you’ve been invited to a dinner party – not necessarily a fancy party or anything like that – you can imagine yourself attending in black tie or in cutoffs, doesn’t matter. What matters is that at this party you will spend the entire evening at a dinner table, stuck between two people with whom you will be forced to make pleasant conversation.  And here is all you know about the two people:  The person on your right is an atheist, but has voted the exact same ballot as you in every election of your lifetime. The person on your left, however, has voted against you on every single issue, but he or she professes Jesus Christ as Lord and is deeply faithful to seek after God in prayer, and Scripture and corporate worship. If your goal for the night is to have a pleasant conversation and find a new friend, which of these people will end up with most of your attention by night’s end? Continue reading →

This sermon was preached on Nov. 13, 2011.  The scripture text is Galatians 6:2-10

So, this has been a good week. More than most, this has been a week of scary adventures, but they were the best kind of scary adventures, the kind in which a good end is assured if you just keep pushing through.  Evelyn’s birth, and the unexpected complication of her blood incompatibility were both just such an adventure. Everyone around us and everything inside our heads assured us that the end would work out ok, but the  meantime was worry and exhaustion and anxiety and waiting, and that was just my end of it. For Jennifer is was all that multiplied by four to the power of pain. But of course, joy came in the morning, Friday morning, to be exact. Friday was unadulterated goodness. Continue reading →

This sermon was preached on Nov. 6, 2011.  The scripture text is Deuteronomy 34.

“His eye was not dimmed, and his vigor was not abated.” Now that is horribly unfair.  Here I am, thirty years old, barely able to make it from bed to bathroom without my glasses. Continue reading →

Slowly, I am coming to accept defeat.  Continue reading →

Preached on September 11, 2011.

In April of 2001 I turned twenty years old, just finishing my sophomore year of college.  That same month, the Atlantic Monthly printed an article, “The Organization Kid,” that offered a broad-brush picture of my generation. The author, David Brooks (whose work I still read all the time) visited undergraduates and professors at Princeton (note, this article was about my generation, not my peers), and he came to these conclusions about the college students of the new millennium: Continue reading →