Easter without end John 17:20-26 by Isaac S. Villegas May 12, 2013 John chapter 17 is a long prayer — Jesus’s prayer for his friends, for his loved ones. John 17 is his long prayer on the night he is handed over to his executioners. Jesus knows what Judas is about to do. Jesus knows [...]
Mixing and Sharing by Kathy Roberts May 5, 2013 I take the title of my sermon from a phrase that anthropologist Glenn Bowman uses to describe what goes on at sacred sites in Macedonia. It is his Macedonian research that I draw on here. In John 14: 27, Jesus says to his disciples: “Peace I [...]
Bluebirds, nests, and hope, part 4 Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-30 by Isaac S. Villegas April 21, 2013 In 2008 I preached three sermons on the bluebirds who were living, and dying, in my front yard, in the bird house that my neighbor gave me. I guess we can call that my only sermon [...]
The Wounded Judge Who Saves Acts 9:1-6 by Scott Schomburg April 14, 2013 In the Acts of the Apostles we enter a world ruled by the crucified Jesus. The resurrected one returns to the scene exalted in the preached word. Peter and John carry this witness into the city of Jerusalem, directed toward rulers, elders, [...]
To believe John 20:19-31 by Isaac S. Villegas April 7, 2013 In a documentary called The Undocumented, Marcos Hernandez tries to track down his father, or at least the body of his father, who was last seen in the Arizonan desert, with other migrants, a group of them, walking for days in the 120-degree summer [...]
Come and See John 20:1-18 by Catherine Thiel Lee Easter: March 31, 2013 Jesus Christ is risen! (Everyone hopefully responds, “He is risen indeed!”) Nice. And I have just proved that you already know this story, the one I have been asked to stand up here and tell you. You already know this story. But [...]
Holy Thursday John 13:1-17, 31b-35 by Isaac S. Villegas March 28, 2013 Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday go together. Both turn our eyes, they turn our lives, to the basics, the fundamentals of earthly life: dirt and water. On Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent, we are marked by ashes, by dirt, and we [...]
God of Israel, strange and familiar Isaiah 43:16-21 by Matt Elia March 17, 2013 I Our Psalm for today reads: “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.” What might it mean for us to be like those who dream? In a short story published in 1911, W. [...]
Prodigal Son Luke 15:1-3, 11-23 by Isaac S. Villegas March 10, 2013 On Monday mornings, a few years ago, there was a worship service in a clearing in the brush and trees for the people who lived nearby, in the woods. We worshiped on an abandoned concrete slab, a stones throw from an onramp for [...]
Fox and the hen Luke 13:31-35 by Melissa Florer-Bixler February 24, 2013 While I’ve heard the adage “fox in a henhouse” it came to life when I visited the home of one of my daughter’s classmates who lives on the outskirts of Chapel Hill. The mother of the family was showing me their sprawling acreage [...]