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Deuteronomy 6:4-9 & 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
June 25, 2006
Fox Valley Presbyterian Church
At 5:30pm, four weeks into my first year of being a teacher and a minister, Mrs. Bailey caught me on the phone just as I was about to lock my door and leave my classroom and go home to try to recover from another […]
Acts 10: 44-48
May 14, 2006
4th Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Vespers
May 21, 2006
Hope Christian Reformed Church, Oak Forest, IL
As far as Peter was concerned, he never knew what God would ask of him next.
His life, since that first request, had gone places he never expected. He started out a fisherman, a working man, with a family and […]
I’m posting an MP3 audio file of “Lullaby for the Dying,” a sermon on Matthew 2:13–23 that I gave at Hope Christian Reformed Church on Sunday, December 26, 2004. (I’ll be making the sermon text available later.)
John 12:1-11
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
Monday Noonday Holy Week Service
There’s no way around it: whatever his motives for saying it, Judas was right. How many others in the room must have thought the same thing? That perfume was excessive. A year’s pay, wasted. Imagine what good you could use that money for!
The excess in this story […]
2 Corinthians 4:5-15
Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church, Oak Park, IL
Gifts of Women Sunday
On the surface, Ashley Smith is not a likely candidate to illustrate and celebrate the gifts of women serving Jesus Christ. She’s no Mother Theresa, Susanna Wesley, Margaret Towner, or Rosa Parks. Ashley’s life story is filled with sketchy details: violence; low education; addiction; […]
Luke 2:1-20
Vespers, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
I will admit to an inordinate love for Christmas music. I’ve been known to extend the playing time of my Christmas CDs well into February. On Christmas Eve day, at about 10:00am, I am generally glued to the to radio to listen to the year’s live broadcast of the festival […]
Psalm 95
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
For the past two years, I taught high religion at a college prep school on Chicago’s West Side. The pace for teachers and students was furious and frantic. From the end of August until May, with two weeks to breath in December, we crafted curriculum, graded grammar, pieced together projects. My […]
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Loop CRC
Hope CRC
Years later, after listening to Jesus’ stories, nurturing them in their memories, and retelling them to the community, the parable of the sower must have popped up alongside this parable of the wheat and tares for the disciples.
They are both about planting the seed;
they are both about fruits of the Gospel,
they […]
Numbers 11:24-30
Hope CRC
Church, at its best, is supposed to “work” for you no matter what state you show up in. A little something for the joyful, the tearful, the contrite, and the proud. A piece here for the hesitant and there for the hopeful. Prayers for the needy, opportunities for the blessed. All one mixed […]
Ephesians 1:3-14
Hope CRC
Last October, after preaching at Hope, I raced out of the parking lot and jumped on the tollway going north to attend the wedding of my high school next-door locker neighbor and great friend Siiri Rimpila. In fact, Siiri did me a great honor—she asked me to help the rabbi who would be […]