The events described in our text for today is not for the faint of heart. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s a little gruesome, actually. It might seem more like a tale from a Stephen King novel than from the Bible. It raises a lot of questions for me. Why did Herod like to listen to John? What was the dance Herodias danced, that could sway her step-father so? Why did Herod follow through on his step-daughter’s request? How exactly was John’s head presented to Herod?  Was there decorative lettuce and a tomato cherry next to John’s head?...

A couple of months ago I watched the documentary “Minimalism” on Netflix. I’m a junky for documentaries, and this one seemed especially interesting. The description caught my eye with its rejection of American consumerism by emphasizing “less is more,” and of course it’s promise that it would bring me happiness. Who doesn’t want to be happier? In the documentary, the people interviewed had given up material possessions to one degree or another. On the extreme end were 2 men who had quit their high-paying jobs in corporate America to live a minimalist lifestyle. One of the men boasted of owning less than 300 items...

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus met three people – Jairus, an unnamed woman, and a young girl. The theologian David Lose notes that each one is utterly different but so very similar. Jairus was a local Synagogue leader who, by his position, status, and gender, had power, prestige, and comfort. At the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum was an unnamed woman living with a chronic illness. Not only was she labeled “unclean,” which robbed her from both physical touch and entrance to the temple, but in her pain, she was a victim of predatory physicians taking money and giving nothing. Then, there was Jairus’s daughter who was barely alive with no power, no rights, and no say in what would happen to her...

I feel that there is one part in particular in our passage for today that those of us here at Wicker Park Lutheran Church can pretty easily relate to. It’s the part where water is getting into the boat… so we have water getting into a place that it shouldn’t be. Does this sound familiar to anyone here? Unwanted water? Maybe? For those who don’t know what I’m talking about I’m referring to the flooding of the basement that has been occurring here over the past few months. It’s why we have had a huge capital campaign to raise funds to repair the basement. Now that this problem has been going on for a few months, I’m sure the question on some your minds is “God, why are you delaying taking care of this problem?”...

As humans, we love a good story. When we meet someone new we might say, “tell me your story.” We like to discuss the storyline of that new show. We bathe our children in stories about our family, our nation, and our religion. Even Jesus told a variety of stories...

There is this quote that I often see, in various forms, that circulates every so often around the internet. It is “A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” This quote has been attributed to various people: Mark Twain, Winston Churchill among others. But the original person was Charles Spurgeon in 1859. Now 1859, can you believe that? That is 150 years ago. 150 years! It seems like this quote could easily describe our present time, right? Although we have this new modern term for lie we would use today: fake news. So a modern upgrade to this quote would be “Fake news can travel half-way around the world while the truth is still composing the first letter of a tweet.”...

The word “sabbath” is central in today’s readings. It’s a word that drips with religiosity and is rarely used elsewhere. In fact, most religions have some kind of “day of rest,” even if they don’t describe it as a sabbath. The essence of a sabbath is to have one day a week to abstain from work focused on benefits for the individual. In the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Old Testament, we learn that over time the Israelites defined what was considered inappropriate on the Sabbath – including things like cooking, trading, plowing and reaping, gathering wood, and loading animals...

Listen to Pastor Jason’s sermon from Holy Trinity Sunday here!

“What does this mean?” That question was echoed in today’s reading from Acts, it’s a question you may have thought while Maria read in French, and often I read John’s gospel with that same question in mind. So, what does this mean?...

Listen to Vicar Bridget’s sermon from the Seventh Sunday of Easter here!