Luke pictures the boy Jesus as wise. Once, Luke writes, “They found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). Note that today’s text stresses questions. A good question at the right time creates new visions by which we become better disciples. Yet we often deflect questions and this stifles mature faith. God expects seekers to ask robust questions. Read the full text.

There is an interesting story the late George Burns told about his youth and his religious inclinations. He recounts: “When I was 7 years old, I was singing with three other Jewish kids from the neighborhood. We called ourselves the “Pee Wee Quartet.” A local department store held a talent contest representing all the local churches. When the Presbyterians had no one to enter, the minister asked the four of us to represent them. There we were, four Jewish boys, sponsored by a Presbyterian church and our opening song was “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” Read the full text. 

Our culture has sold Christians a bill of goods about Christmas. Our culture has managed to re-interpret the Christ-event we celebrate at Christmas into something else. We do not celebrate Christmas as a holy-day anymore. Christmas has morphed into something else. The authentic advent of Christ gives hope to an otherwise hopeless world—a hope we cannot give ourselves. It is only a hope that God can give us from beyond us. Read the full text. 

On this last Sunday of the Christian year, we might prudently ask: “What About the End?” Addressing John’s Apocalypse, we naturally turn to issues of “the end.” After all, for most of us the end is frequently a key element of an experience. The conclusion of a movie or television drama is likely the most important aspect of the event. Read the full text. 

This story begins with an excess of names. Nine proper names dominate the first three verses and reminds us that this is a story that oozes details of particular places and specific people. Elkanah heads a respected family. But if we pay close attention, we know that even in the best of families trouble lurks—polygamy in this case. Read the full text. 

As Mark often does, he couples two stories; first a warning against religion that is all show, and second an endorsement of a widow’s generosity. The second point is an obvious one. Jesus did not pay high tribute to the widow’s gift because it was small, or because she was a widow. Rather Jesus esteemed her gift because it represented all she had. Read the full text. 

Do you remember being the last one chosen? Whether we are the best athlete or the most popular person in a group, there are times when we are new. We are new because we have not proved our skills. Like it or not, there are times when we are the last chosen. If not the last chosen, then at least overlooked for advancement—a promotion we feel best qualified to assume. Read the full text.

My friend and I were taking his college girlfriend Sandy to the airport to fly home for Christmas. But Sandy had an unusual request—to visit her friend’s wedding reception at the posh Dallas Country Club. Such an occasion called for better clothing. Yet after Sandy’s kvetching and pleading, we gave in. Awkwardly for me, as we were standing near the receiving line, Sandy banged into a tray excessively filled with empty crystal glasses and fine china. Read the full text.

For those of you who keep track of such things, today’s lesson follows Jesus’ third prediction of his passion—which is to say a forecast of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Usually this is the great theme of Lent. “Passion” is a word that seems to startle the anxious and fainthearted: “Passion”? Awkward. Read the full text.

Possibly we never say it out loud; after all we are modern and urbane people. Yet, in the back of many minds, those who desperately want to trust God’s goodness, lurks a question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Doubtless we pose the question in diverse ways. “Karl Barth once said that people come to church with only one question on their mind: Is it true? The providence of God, the saving power of Jesus Christ, the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection from the dead, the forgiveness of sin: Is it true?" Read the full text. 

Observed on the first Sunday in October, World Communion Sunday calls the Church to be the universal, inclusive Church. Presbyterians first observed the day in 1936. Later, the Federal Council of Churches in 1940 adopted the day. Shortly thereafter, the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches observed World Communion Sunday. Perhaps, it is fitting that on this day when we celebrate the unity of the world-wide church that we address one of the thorniest issues in scripture and life—divorce. Read the full text. 

Just like in the church’s early days, we moderns mostly don’t grasp what church business is. We confuse the church’s ministry with “should and ought.” Truth says we attribute the church’s ministries to God’s power in the church of Jesus Christ. One such confused critic of the church was, for example, H. L. Mencken (1880—1956) the noted, if crabby, American journalist who once quipped “A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.” Read the full text.  

In the Christian life, Jesus invites believers into a world where everything seems upside-down. In the natural world, where survival is not only a priority but the priority, an animal either eats lunch or is lunch. Biologists write of the food chain, and we human creatures sit at its pinnacle. Yet, even within the human family, there appears to be an avid need for competition, if not biological, then, at least, within the human psyche. Read the full text. 

We come to tasks with preconceived notions about how we might do one task or another. When leading/following these ideas create friction regarding the work we are trying to complete. Jesus knew this. Jesus also knew his disciples require altering their world-view before they recognize God’s way of seeing the world—and how God wants disciples to see the world. Read the full text. 

Our lesson today is a painful one if we read it from the perspective of the early twenty-first century. Jesus appears to be almost rude to a Gentile woman who comes to him for help. If there is one attribute few of us would ascribe to Jesus, it is the trait of rudeness. To be rude is to be guilty of incivility. Read the full text. 

We all know of churches, or even been members of churches, a good deal too troubled about the outward appearance of things rather, than the passionate loving heart of the church. These faith communities intend that the budget line up just right. Or perhaps they strived for their church buildings be both impressive in size and spotless in appearance. These churches were pictures of perfect organization. Read the full text. 

Over the years I have heard many golfers say: “I can worship God anywhere.” Although I have heard my share of religious language on golf courses, the truth is that very few golfers on Sunday morning are offering genuine prayers to God on the putting greens. Read the full text. 

I think most of us are familiar with the phrase “Go Big or Go Home.” For better or worse, that tends to be how my life gets lived. I can have this tendency to jump all in ready to go on something I’m passionate about and tackle more than one thing at a time. Some of you know that about me, I do things like build a house while living in a camper while in graduate school. Why, well, why not? That’s how we ended up with a Psalm as our scripture for the sermon today. Read the full text.

Since I work mostly with adolescents and college students, one of the issues I encounter most frequently is the issue of identity. “Who am I?” is a question constantly asked by young people, but it also frequently pops up for adults as well. We have all heard of the mid-life (and sometimes quarter-life) crisis! Read the full text. 

Chapter 4 of Ephesians begins: “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called . . .” This chapter 4, in addition, describes both believers’ unity and the unaccustomed hope which God now offers Christians in Jesus. Thus, Ephesians 4 starts with Paul’s documenting his imprisonment. From there Paul concentrates on Christian unity (Ephesians 4:1–16). Paul begs Christians to live in a way which reflects the grace God gives them. Hear the day’s lesson that addresses “Unity in the Body of Christ.” Read the full text. 

King David’s public presence begins at 1 Samuel 16. Yahweh selects David from among Jesse’s eight sons to be Israel’s new king. Later, David defeats Goliath in another call story. David soon unites Israel. Finally, David dances the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem and rules for 40 years. Yet, these public portrayals hardly prepare us for David’s private aspects.

Our lesson reveals another element of King David—a side we have yet to see. Plainly, if this story tells us anything, it is that even influential moderns fall into the same trap. These include Gen. David Petraeus, past SC Governor Mark Sanford, and Bill Cosby. The Me-Too movement named many others! How the mighty fall. Read the full text. 

Our lesson begins in Jerusalem with King David doing well. Yet our passage is a bit confusing unless we know that the conspicuous word translated “house” (consistently bayith in Hebrew) has three distinct meanings: 1) palace, 2) temple, and 3) dynasty (or royal house). These fluid understandings of this word “house” create traction by which the writer helps readers see the theology behind the monarchy—and perhaps why the monarchy is such a mixed bag. Walter Brueggemann writes: “David’s determination to build God a suitable house is part royal-aggrandizement (increase of power, status, or wealth) and part genuine piety." Talk about a mixed bag. Read the full text. 

There is no spiritual act in life more important or persistent than forgiveness. Examples of brokenness caused by the absence of forgiveness fills our Bibles. Jesus addresses the problem multiple times. Forgiveness is so important that Jesus called attention to it with clarity in “The Lord’s Prayer.” That striking sentence in the Lord’s Prayer causes any sensitive person to choke on the words when praying: “Forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Read the full text.

We have come to the 4^th of July, remembering that on this day the United States was born. American freedom came into being after voting for self-determination. Congress decreed a Declaration of Independence—written mostly by T. Jefferson helped by five others. Congress fully approved the document on 4 July 1776. We Americans pride ourselves on our grit. It is similar to that of Winston Churchill during England’s darkest days. In a June 1940 speech to the House of Commons, as the Brits neared the edge of defeat by Hitler, Churchill pressed his nation...Read the full text. 

It seems like on 1 August 1966, Charles Whitman got things started from the UT tower. Many remember as well the 1999 massacre at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth. That tragedy hit pretty close to home. Over the years we have also seen stories about students killed at schools like Columbine in Colorado, Sandy Hook in Connecticut, and Margorie Stoneman in Florida. We Texans have also had our share, too. In addition, last May nine people died in an attack at a high school in the central Russian city of Kazan, Russia. Of course, we know that between COVID-19, cancer, and various natural disasters, our fear is amply engaged. Read the full text.

Today is Father’s Day and we will briefly visit the theme of counting the cost of being a father. Did you know that the largest number of collect calls made on any single day of the year people make on Father’s Day (Almanac for Farmers & City Folk, Spokesman Review)? Real fathers know how to count the cost. As a child, my sister gave my father a Father’s Day poster that read “Anybody can be a father, but it takes a special man to be a daddy.” Real fathers know how to count the cost. Read the full text.  

If there was ever a person in the Bible who lived a charmed life, it had to have been King David. He had beautiful wives, numerous children, and a kingdom that expanded under his reign as it never had before—or since! David captured the hearts and minds of Israel in an extraordinary fashion. He ruled Israel for some forty years (1 Kings 2:11). Even today, Israel remembers David as its most eminent ruler. Yet, David’s rule began in murky political intrigue. It arose when Yahweh directed the old prophet Samuel to speak some bad news to Saul—the currently reigning king. Read the full text here.  

Our lesson arises near the beginning of Israelite monarchy—part success and part failure—in the governance of Israel during biblical times. Samuel has been Judge of Israel until his death at the age of fifty-two according to classical rabbinical sources. Late in Samuel’s tenure, he made his sons judges over Israel. Regrettably, they were a sorry lot and the people became disgruntled—probably because Samuel’s boys, Phinehas and Hophni, took bribes and perverted justice. This circumstance prepares us for the next part of the story. Israel’s time of upright judges had run its course. Now appears a new thing in Israel. For several of our Sundays in June and July we will explore texts from 1 & 2 Samuel. Hear now our day’s lesson...Read the full text here. 

Memorial Day and Labor Day are bookend holidays. In the United States, they mark summers beginning and ending. Families celebrate these three-day weekends in traditional ways. Observed on the last Monday in May, Memorial Day remembers U.S. soldiers who lost their lives serving their country. First begun as Decoration Day in 1868, this holiday honored Civil War dead. Since then, it came to be a day for Americans to call to mind all U. S. soldiers, killed or missing in action, in all wars. Read the full text here. 

A good question for Confirmation is “Why did God call the church into existence?” As the church has continued intact for 2000 years, we suspect God’s hand in the mix. The church’s birth at Pentecost points to God’s almighty hand. What does this story teach Christians? Hear the day’s lesson...Read the full text here. 

On its face, the opening story from Luke’s second volume of his masterpiece Luke-Acts seems about as far from the way an average 21 century United Methodist looks at the world as it can be. For starters, God lifts up Jesus and a cloud takes him from their sight. I realize that some churches specialize in speculation about such otherworldly scenes, but generally Methodists do not. We are, if you will pardon the pun, a pretty “down to earth” group of folks. We tend to be practical, pragmatic, and sensible people. Many of us are like Thomas, the apostle from Missouri, who said, “Show me” (John 20:24-29). Read full text here. 

Although Mother’s Day is not a day of worship per se, as is Christmas or Easter, it is relevant to the church’s life. What about the origin of Mother’s Day? The earliest celebrations go back to the spring revelry of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the gods. During the 1600’s, England marked “Mothering Sunday,” which honored England’s mothers. Many of England’s poor worked as servants for the wealthy and lived with their employers. On Mothering Sunday, the servants returned home and spent the day with their mothers.  Read full text here. 

Luke tells a great story today. It is about a triple Israel outcast—a foreigner, a Gentile, and a sexually mutilated person—who desired to worship and learn of Yahweh. Philip had been preaching in Samaria as our story opens. Luke tells us the basics of a story about an outcast who is a seeker: the time is noon (alternate translation “toward the south”), the place is an isolated road with a chariot upon it, the key character is an Ethiopian eunuch, the minister (CFO) to the queen, and who was a “God-fearer,” coming home from a worship pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Read the full text here.

Let’s explore God’s promise in Jesus as the Good Shepherd. We center on one of Jesus seven “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel. These are Jesus “ego ami” (eimi) sayings. They disclose who John thinks Jesus is and does for believers. Hear the Gospel lesson: 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Read the full text here. 

I heard a scholar say that evangelism is inviting people into stories of God’s promise to the ancestors (Abraham/Sarah, Isaac/Rebekah, Jacob/Rachel), the deliverance from slavery, the gift of the land, and the like. Evangelism also means that as we invite people into the initial stories of faith that these stories become so descriptive for our lives that we abandon and renounce all other stories that shape our lives. In other words, the stories of scripture are the stories that characterize who we are and what values and meaning God’s gift of life has for us. Read full text here. 

Dateline: Idaho Falls, Idaho—Dihydrogen monoxide causes thousands of drownings each year, leads to excessive sweating and vomiting, and contributes to land erosion. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. Fifteen-year-old Nathan Zohner made people aware of that fact by proving in his science project on critical thinking skills just how vulnerable people are. Media and members of Idaho’s congressional delegation called Nathan to talk about the project that won the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, the Post Register reported. The project asked fifty ninth graders if we should ban the compound called dihydrogen monoxide. Forty-three said yes. The undecided pupils were six. A single student told Nathan that dihydrogen monoxide is just a chemical name for water. Read full text here.

Many people like puzzles—at least to a point. The New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzle is a puzzle that many Americans daily anticipate. Rubik’s cube is a puzzle that has notoriety as well. Yusheng Du (3.47) holds the current World record. He shaved off 0.75 seconds from the previous record set by Feliks Zemdegs (4.22). His record is the one and only sub 4 second solution achieved in competition. Read full text here. 

John’s Gospel includes several distinctive features by way of contrast to the Synoptic New Testament Gospels- Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These three Gospels share so much in common that scholars refer to these three as the “Synoptic Gospels”- as seen with “one eye”. Examples of the differences include a one-year time frame for the synoptic account. Yet, John’s story requires three years seen in three different Passovers mentioned in the story. John, in addition, is the only canonical Gospel that refers to Jesus as plainly divine and pre-existing. Read full text here. 

Not too many years ago I was in a restaurant in Austin late one evening after having made several hospital calls. I sat at a table and noticed a family of several children sitting at a booth with what appeared to be the children’s parents. As it is with families set in this constellation, the family was loud and having fun. I had pulled out a book while I waited for the server to come and take my order. He first stopped however at this family’s booth to take their order. All seemed to be going well until one of the children, and I judged him to be about 10-12, decided he wanted to order off of “the big people’s menu.”

Read full text here. 

This Marcan text outlines our Palm Sunday procession. The parade is a rich endorsement of Jesus Christ, our Messiah. It also trumpets God’s triumph. Jesus rides into Jerusalem and into our lives as the conquering Lamb. “For he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). And . . . at the start of the processional, momentarily we feel called, chosen, and faithful. But those who know the story well remember there is a shadow cast by the hoopla surrounding this parade. It is similar to a long-ago November 1963 parade—John F. Kennedy’s funeral procession. We remember that for all the pageantry of magnificence of that parade, Jesus’ Palm Parade too has its ominous side. Read full text here. 

We can ponder a theme fora Christians that we might title “Follow the Leader.” For Lent this could mean that our theme is “where Jesus goes—we go too.” Today our title is “Finding Jesus to Follow . . .” and time figures into today’s lesson. The coming of the Greeks signals that the hour has come for God to glorify Jesus. A biblical scholar puts it: “In true Johannine fashion, the Christian’s hour of glory is identical with the hour of obedience, pain, and servanthood. The old adage has it, ‘No cross, no crown.’ In John, cross and crown are one” (Gerard Sloyan, John: Interpretation Series, John Knox Press, 1988, p. 156). When the Greeks ask to see Jesus, John sets the stage for Jesus’ hour. Read full text here. 

When we talk about taking time for the journey we could be speaking about Sabbath Time. Ephesians 2:1-10 instructs that all things are in Christ. We who receive this gift might also need time to delight in it. Imagine God as a parent observing us unwrap Christmas presents. We watched our own small children in that setting too— unwrapping one thing and quickly moving to the next “bright, shiny object.” We watched our children do that. We noted that they didn’t seem too focused on the gifts. “Sabbath Rest” is an occasion to appreciate God in worship and rest from our work. Read full text here. 

Our lesson today has become the rallying cry of those who want Americans to return to a clearer cut and simpler grasp of right and wrong. James Madison wrote: “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind of self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” Hear our lesson, Exodus 20:1-17. Read the full text. 

Have you ever noticed how far our world will go to escape the realities and difficulties that life has thrust upon us? Here is a 20+ year old news item to ponder: Among tourist-attraction theme parks recently proposed: one modeled after the Berlin Wall (armed guards, re-enacted escape attempts) in Ft. Lauderdale; an amusement park at the $5 billion, never-used Kalkar, Germany, nuclear power plant (with the cooling towers holding up the roller coaster); the Navy Glory Center tribute to the Cold War in Vladivostok, Russia (charging visitors $700 to fire a Soviet missile); and the Billie Sol Estes Museum in Granbury, Texas, featuring papers and artifacts of the notorious fertilizer-tank swindler of the 1960s. Read the full text. 

Someone once told me that if you confessed Christ and joined the church, then your troubles would be over. Has anyone ever said anything like that to you? Once, in the De Leon hospital a nurse approached. She asked about an eighty-five-year-old retired pastor with health problems. His doctor always admitted him to our nearby De Leon Hospital. He regularly came to the hospital as he was in pitiful shape. Read the full text here. 

We complete Epiphany on Transfiguration Sunday. Today’s Gospel lesson recounts Jesus’ transfiguration as recounted by Mark’s terse, but potent description. The lesson from 2 Kings conveys Elijah’s translation into heaven. Elijah also places his prophetic mantle upon his successor, Elisha. This text appears today because Elijah plays a role in Jesus’ transfiguration. Also, leadership transitions always challenge the church. Thus, stewards who manage a household of leadership might pay attention to the leadership transition written about here. Read the full text. 

“I have become all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22). Perhaps it is a cliché, but unsuccessful people, those who fall short in their chosen profession, commonly fail because they don’t get along with other people. Adults and even children struggle with “getting along with others.” I had a pastor friend, who once got a note in her church’s collection plate. A youngster had scrawled this question: “Do you believe in the Devil? I think he may be in my class at school.” On my own grade school report cards, there was in fact a category labeled “getting along with others.” Few people can succeed with others if they are hard to get along with. Read the full text.

Some New Testament moral issues seem terribly irrelevant today. These ethical topics do not seemingly impact our burning modern church problems. Even talk about these issues looks like a deflecting tactic. Why deal with inconsequential sin as Rome burns? Eating food linked to pagan cultic worship looks like a trivial matter easily avoided—until we recognize that we can learn much about dealing with church conflict, about honest differences we have as Christians, and the dire matter of individualism versus community. Read the full text. 

A rabbi who lived in a small Russian town at the turn of the 20th century had long been pondering the deepest religious questions. After twenty years of contemplation, he finally concluded that when he got right down to it, he just didn’t know. Shortly after reaching this conclusion, he was walking across the Village Square toward the synagogue to pray. A Cossack, a local czarist cop, was in a mood to harass the rabbi. “Hey rabbi, where do you think you are going?” The rabbi answered, “I don’t know.” This response thoroughly infuriated the Cossack constable. Read the full text.

Plainly, there is too much for us to mine from a lesson as rich as this one. So, in order to examine this story, I ask that we mainly focus on two phrases: “Come and see” and “Where did you get to know me?” The first phrase occurs as Jesus comes to Galilee. Seeing Philip, Jesus invites him to “follow me.” Philip then finds Nathanael and tells him that he located the long-awaited Messiah, promised by both the law and the prophets. The Messiah comes from Nazareth—Nazareth, is the Gospel’s version of our Waxahachie. In other words, Nathanael’s asks: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth (or Waxahachie)?” Read the full text. 

Today is the Baptism of the Lord Sunday—a day when the church thinks about baptism and its meaning. Plainly, baptism is a divisive issue that modern churches discuss—even here in Salado. The dispute is as old as denominations. Baptism is supposed to make us “brothers/sisters” in faith, as when we say “Brother Jimmy” or “Sister Gaye.” Yet, we know people are overly zealous in their understanding and interpretation of baptism. They appointed themselves as the “baptism police.” Their so-called spiritual gift is to tell others whether or not their baptism is valid. Regrettably, this situation has been with us for years. Read the full text.