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Luke 14:1; 7-14 When I was in seminary I had a professor who taught us a lesson about hospitality that I will never forget. Some of you may know that I went to seminary in Europe with Baptists from all...
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Luke 15:1-10 I don’t quite know why I was so surprised by this. As I prepared for my sermon this week, today—the 15th anniversary of the terrible and terrifying day that airplanes crashed into the...
View ArticleBread on the Water
In April 2015 I gave the closing address at Faith Forward in Chicago. It ended up being some deeply personal reflections on the loss of my brother, John, only one year before. Yesterday would have...
View ArticleWhat Lies Behind
2 Timothy 1:1-14 World Communion Sunday In addition to my well-known aversion to most animals (please do not judge me, and take the opportunity to watch me look extremely uncomfortable by coming to the...
View ArticleWhat Lies Within
2 Timothy 2:8-15 With all due respect to all you brilliant academics out there, I have to tell you today the most important lesson I learned when I was finishing the dissertation for my doctoral work:...
View ArticleGod Showed Up: A Meditation for the Day After
Today I walked into the building and got in an elevator with a group of about 12 Columbia students attending class in our building. They were tense and silent, and then I said to them: I’m so sorry....
View ArticleWhat Will Save Us
Luke 1:68-79 I don’t know how it was at YOUR house on Thanksgiving Day, but at my house growing up, Thanksgiving was one of those Norman Rockwell kinds of holidays . . . at least my Mom did her very...
View ArticleAgain, A Meditation for Christmas Eve
(**This meditation was inspired by Bishop Will Willimon’s column Christmas: Herod in Trouble) Well, here we are, and it’s Christmas Eve, again. On the edge of yet another year, we hear the ancient...
View ArticleBeloved
Matthew 3:13-17 A few years ago I went to a wedding shower at which all the guests walked in the door and someone slapped a nametag on our backs. As an icebreaker we had to talk with folks and try to...
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Exodus 1:8-20; Matthew 4:12-23 Here’s what I learned this week: sometimes being nasty is the same as being holy…and protest can be prayer. I returned late last night from a long day at the women’s...
View ArticleExecutive Order
Matthew 25:35-40 My name is Max Wolff. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered in Auschwitz. My name is Siegfried Wilmersdörfer. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I...
View ArticleThe Hardest Commandment
Matthew 5:38-48 This week the senior staff spent a day and a half in intensive staff development. This is notable, because we rarely have occasion to spend this much time all together in one place,...
View ArticleOvercome by Faith
Matthew 17:1-9 Transfiguration Early in my career I was responsible for planning and leading a women’s retreat. I made up a carefully detailed schedule and lists of preparations that began the very...
View ArticleEverything Must Change: Paradise
Genesis 2:5-17; 3:1-7 Controversy is swirling in conservative Christian circles this week over the release of the movie based on the best-selling book, The Shack. The book, originally self-published...
View ArticleEverything Must Change: Protest
Matthew 21:1-11 Try to imagine what it was like that day. The weather hadn’t started to get oppressively hot in the desert yet; the air was still cool, especially at night. And up there on the Mount...
View ArticleNever Alone
John 14:15-21 In the summer of 1984, everyone I knew was preoccupied with the blockbuster summer movie: Ghostbusters. In addition to sporting a very catchy theme song, the movie was the hilarious story...
View ArticleLearning to Listen (Pentecost Sunday)
Genesis 11:1-11 I know that extra room in a Manhattan apartment is unusual, so I’m well aware of how fortunate I am to live in a space with a little study that turns into a guest room. Of late, this...
View ArticleI Have Decided
Matthew 16:21-28 Whenever I read our gospel lesson from the sixteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel or even hear the words read as we did this morning, it always reminds me of an experience I had about...
View ArticleAll We Need Is Love
Matthew 18:15-20 Our world is literally swirling around us, and so many of us are preoccupied both with the daily rush of life and now our worries about friends and family in the path of hurricanes…and...
View ArticleForgiveness, a Prayer
Today in worship we talked about forgiveness. Rev. Michael Livingston preached an amazing sermon on Jesus’ direction to forgive; you can watch the service here. Here’s the pastoral prayer: As we turn...
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