Paul's teaching on sexual ethics in Ephesians 5 is not primarily about morality. Instead, it's about metaphysics. And Aragorn of Gondor turns out to be surprisingly relevant for understanding why. What does it mean to "walk as children of light" when you have forgotten who you are? An ancient baptismal hymn buried at the end of the reading might be Paul's most urgent word to us.

Every morning in Morning Prayer, Psalm 95 invites us to worship, and then stops to warn us. As it turns out, Israel's thirst in the wilderness wasn't just for water. It was a complaint, a complaint directed at God. But God’s reply is rock that Moses strikes, which Paul says points somewhere you might not expect.

God doesn't work with the mostly dead — He raises the completely dead, and in Romans 4, Paul reaches back through Abraham to a God who calls things into existence out of nothing. Lent, as it turns out, isn't about climbing toward God. It's about recognizing that you're Lazarus.

What do Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf have to do with Adam and Christ? More than you might think. Paul's reading of Adam in Romans 5 turns out to be surprisingly Tolkienian (or Tolkien's work is surprsingly Pauline?), and understanding why reshapes not just how we read the Old Testament, but how we read the story of our own lives.

It’s easy to find yourself hiding from God, emotionally worn out by seemingly unanswered prayers and afraid to hope. Through the story of Sarah laughing behind Abraham and a tent door, we explore what it looks like to lose faith in God’s promises after years of disappointed hoping … and what God does about it all anyway. As Lent begins, it is worth asking the question that Sarah wasn’t yet prepared to answer — is anything too wonderful for God? — and see the answer to that found in a name, Jesus.

The Parable of the Sower. The usual question this parable poses is: What kind of soil is your heart? However, is this the right question. In this sermon we explore why making this parable all about us might be the very thing that is getting in the way of things. What might it look like to receive the Word of God as pure gift rather than as personal achievement, and to understand Jesus as the hero of this story, not us.

Explore how Adam’s sin wasn’t just eating the forbidden fruit, but listening to the voice of his wife over God’s, but also how his naming of her as Eve, “Life”—in the face of the curse and death—reveals his faith in God’s Word of redemption in Christ.

A couple of uneducated fisherman stood before the religious elite of Jerusalem, and yet what stood out was the astonishing boldness and authority with which they spoke. The key? They had been with Jesus. Discover how ordinary people become extraordinary rocks of faith, not through credentials of cleavverness, but simply by walking with Jesus and letting His Spirit do the rest.

What drives us to seek out familiar places that feel like home? Explore how the journey of the Magi reveals a deeper truth about the pilgrimage we're all on—a search for the home for which we long and to which we are heading, a search that ultimately leads us to Christ, who traveled an even greater distance to reach us first.

We explore how God reveals Christ to the world in different “languages”—through words to those inside the covenant, and through signs in creation to those outside—and the surprising paradox is … that it’s the outsiders who often recognize Him first. As insiders, how do we all (re-)embrace having been brought inside from that outside.