Category Archives: The Holy Spirit

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“You Will Be My Witnesses!” A Sermon on Acts 1:1-14

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Our reading today is from the first chapter of the “Acts of the Apostles.”  Acts is the second book of Luke’s two-part work. Luke’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus’s earthly ministry, and Acts tells the story of the ministry of the church after Jesus ascends to the Father. Acts begins as Luke’s Gospel ends, with the commissioning of the disciples by Jesus and Jesus’ ascension. Both books are in the form of a letter and the addressee is a man named Theophilus, which can mean “lover of God” or “beloved of God” which means this letter can be read as addressed to us. Continue reading →

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“New Shoots from Old Stumps” A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A

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I’ll tell you a secret. It is something every pastor knows. Also, any therapist, social worker or anybody else who deals with people at a deeply personal level. For many people this is not “the most wonderful time of the year.” For many it is a sad and troubled time. Advent invites us to consider even the darkest parts of our world and of our lives. And that is a good thing, because often the deepest truths are found in the darkest times. That certainly has been true for me. Continue reading →

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“Ask, Search, Knock” A Sermon on Luke 11:1-13

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One of his disciples said to Jesus, “Teach us to pray.” It is a simple request. Perhaps you are perfectly comfortable praying, but many church people are not. As the Presbyterian theologian Robert McAfee Brown wrote: “Prayer for many is like a foreign land. When we go there, we go as tourists. Like most tourists, we feel uncomfortable and out of place. Like most tourists, we therefore move on before too long and go somewhere else.”

The premise of this sermon is that we could all benefit from thinking about what prayer is and how to go about it, that we may stop feeling like tourists in a foreign land and more like pilgrims in the house of prayer. Continue reading →

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“Breaking chains, Opening Doors” A Sermon on Acts 16:16-34

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Today is the Seventh and final Sunday in Easter and we have had several readings from the Book of Acts that emphasize the power of Jesus’ resurrection during the rise of the early church. Continue reading →

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“By the River” A Sermon on Acts 16: 9-15 and Revelation 22: 1-5

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You may have noticed there is a lot about rivers in the service. A river is featured prominently in both our readings for today. One is an actual river in the ancient city of Philippi, where Paul went to pray, and where he met Lydia. The other river is from John the Divine’s vision of the New Jerusalem, where a river runs through the heavenly city. Continue reading →

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“You’ve Got To Serve Somebody” A Sermon on Luke 4: 1-13

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When Patty Fox had her ecclesiastical council here in January I asked her to talk about how she goes about interpreting a scripture text to prepare to preach on it. She said several wise things, but one really struck me as particularly insightful. She said, “I always look for the odd, unexpected or unusual verse, and then I ask, ‘Why is this here, and is it important?” So as I was looking at today’s story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness I looked for something I may not have paid much attention to before. And you need to know that the temptation story, which is also in Mark and Matthew, appears in the readings for the First Sunday in Lent every year (from one of these three Gospels.) And I’ve been ordained 44 years, so I have had a chance to preach on this story more than a few times. Continue reading →

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“The Elusive Presence” A Devotion on James 4:8

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“Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you.”—James 4:8

James makes knowing God sound easy, but I’ve never found it so. When I was a young man, and had outgrown my Sunday school faith, I hungered to know God, not just as an idea, but as a living relationship. Continue reading →

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“Your Sons and Your Daughters Shall Prophesy” A Devotion on Acts 2:16-17

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“No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.‘’—Acts 2:16-17 Continue reading →

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“SHARE!” A Devotion on Acts 2:44-45

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“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”—Acts 2:44-45

My son and daughter were born 20 months apart and so played together as children. Before I was a parent I imagined that the solution to sibling competition over toys was to give them each the same one. So, for example, if you gave one of them a colorful ball, you would also give the other one an identical ball. As reasonable as this sounds it didn’t work. Apparently there is something highly acquisitive hardwired into the human condition. It turns out that both children wanted both balls. I’m tempted to reference a certain Christian doctrine here, but I’ll hold back. Continue reading →