In this sermon we rethink evangelism and witness. We consider the priority of actions before words, how even in a secular age people are always searching for transcendence and spiritual meaning, ulterior versus ultimate motives, how neighboring is not an evangelism strategy, and how our stories are our witness.

In this sermon we begin with the feeling that many of us have no idea where to begin when it comes to neighboring. We consider the two movements of neighboring (from strangers to acquaintances to relationship), how neighboring is about looking for opportunity to connect beginning the smallest ways, how we’re wired as humans for relationships, one of my favorite Anne Lamott stories (you know the one), and that calling people by name is sacred and holy thing because that’s what God does to us.

In this sermon we look at how neighboring makes us reconsider our sense of time, as well as face up to our fears.  We talk about not harvesting all of our time, how fear leads to missed opportunities, neural pathways and synapses, how many times Jesus was interrupted, and one of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut essays.

In this sermon we begin a new series called “Neighboring” where we talk about the Greatest Commandment, the map challenge, the basics of local community, naming the tensions and fears, the Rublev Trinity icon, neighboring as participating in the divine, and a different kind of bucket challenge.

In this sermon we tell the story of the Rio Olympics Bay clean up controversy and how they turned trash into art, Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem and the ensuing conflict, the Sabbath way of life as justice and compassion, a woman who gave more than should have, and why the rejected stone is vindicated.

In this sermon we talk about “the one thing”, why the kingdom belongs to children, how the rich young ruler lost the story, and what’s like to feel the story of God again, with help from the official rule book of Major League Baseball, Kirk Gibson’s famous home run, John Coltrane’s *A Love Supreme*, a painting about how to become an explorer, and a really famous Heschel quote.

In this sermon, we talk about the story of Ricky Jackson, that one time at the 110/101 interchange, one of my favorite stories in the bible, becoming like children, a Tarkovsky film, and what it means to pray and not lose heart.

In this sermon we talk about grace. We begin with this moment when the scribes and the Pharisees grumble at Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners, so he tells them three parables. The irony of their grumbling is that they think they’re any different. God’s people have always relied on God’s grace because they have always grumbled, beginning with the exodus. King David (via the occasion for Psalm 51) is a model for how self-righteous is softened with prophetic truthfulness, which leads him to contrition. It leads Paul their, too. We end with Brennan Manning’s story and his gift of grace for all ragamuffins. 

In this sermon we begin with the brutal honest of Jesus’ words to hate your family, your self, and to give up your possessions. Yikes. We go into the mind of first century Judaism to see that this doesn’t mean what it sounds like, thank God. We see that it had to do with where they found their identity as God’s people and, more importantly, how that was changing because of Jesus. We consider how we are to be like clay in God’s hands and that sometimes … often … always that means being completely transformed. We close with an image of a prayer labyrinth as a symbol of the journey towards God and how each step, whether we see it or not, brings us close to God. 

In this sermon we focus on v11 about how those who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up. We begin by considering this verse in light of the self-care industry. We consider how many have an averse reaction to self-care because of the impossible expectations we end up making  of ourselves and how we end up more stressed out in the end. But does Jesus take it too far in the opposite direction where we don’t care about our selves at all? With the help of Shel Silverstein, Brene Brown, and Henri Nouwen, we find our way through to the gospel as Paul says it in Philippians 2 where he talks about how Christ emptied himself. We see that there is a self-emptying that can be either abusive, where you end up less that God desires, or holy wherein you imitate the very character of God. Being low is not about a lack of self worth but our ability to show up and be present, wholeheartedly, bearing witness to the love of God revealed in Jesus.