Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church

[This sermon is the sixth in a six-week series on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  We’ve paired the Steps with Scripture passages to explore wisdom for the broader faith community.] Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s … Continue reading The 12 Steps: Evangelist

[This sermon is the fifth in a six-week series on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  We’ve paired the Steps with Scripture passages to explore wisdom for the broader faith community.] Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Step 10: Continued to … Continue reading The 12 Steps: Moebius Loop

[For six weeks, we are working through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, pairing the Steps with scripture and seeking wisdom for all people. This week’s sermon is the fourth in the series, and deals with Steps 1 and 2.] Step 7: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. Step 8: Made a list of … Continue reading The 12 Steps: Humbled

I never did like the gates on gated communities all that much.   That cross arm to remind you that some belong and some do not. A gate to remind you that someone else has to grant you access beyond this point. A barrier to remind you that this is someone else’s territory where others will … Continue reading Is Jesus-the-Gate Good News?

[For six weeks, we are working through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, pairing the Steps with scripture and seeking wisdom for all people. This week’s sermon is the third in the series, and deals with Steps 1 and 2.] Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature … Continue reading The 12 Steps: Honest Healing

Imagine for a moment that you are a parent of a 9 year-old boy. It’s a weekday and you wake up your son, drag him out of bed, pester him to get dressed, eat breakfast and brush his teeth. You pull together his lunch, make sure he has his backpack, brush your fingers through his … Continue reading Where Are Your Wounds?

[For six weeks, we are working through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, pairing the Steps with scripture and seeking wisdom for all people. This week’s sermon is the first in the series, and deals with Steps 1 and 2.] Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable. … Continue reading The 12 Steps: Pentecost Magic

[For six weeks, we are working through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, pairing the Steps with scripture and seeking wisdom for all people. This week’s sermon is the second in the series, and deals with Steps 3 and 4.] Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the … Continue reading The 12 Steps: Light/Dark

When Flannery O’Connor published her second novel, “The Violent Bear It Away,” she added an epigraph on the front page –a single Bible verse from the Gospel of Matthew: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent bear it away” (11:12). O’Connor spent a … Continue reading A Living Stone

We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped. Chances are you’ve faced that kind of disappointment before. We had hoped the college would have accepted him. We had hoped the election would have turned out differently. We had hoped the cancer would have been less aggressive. We had hoped the … Continue reading Risking Hope