A sermon preached for the third Sunday in Advent at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, CA December 12, 2021 Colossians 1:15-20 Ezekiel 37:1-14 This is the third Sunday of Advent, the day we light the pink candle, and celebrate JOY. And to talk about joy, obviously, we chose a story about zombie prophesies from…
A sermon preached at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, California December 13, 2020 Luke 1:26-55 The story of Jesus didn’t begin in the halls of power, or among the rich and famous. This story began when an angel of the Lord went to an unwed teenaged girl in the backwater town of Nazareth and…
A sermon preached at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, California Nov 29, 2020 Psalm 126 Mark 13:24-37 Our passage from Mark’s Gospel is referred to as an “apocalypse” text. People tend to think of movies like “Mad Max” when they think of apocalypse. End of the world stuff. The Walking Dead. Left Behind books.…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho Dec 22 2019 selected verses from Luke 1 If pastors were honest about it, Zechariah is one of the stories that makes us really nervous. He is one of our own, a priest, serving God in the temple in Jerusalem. If you remember back to…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho December 14, 2019 Ezra 1:1-4, 3:1-4, 10-13 As we’ve learned throughout the fall, the Jews had been carted off to exile in Babylon initially in 586 BCE. Their temple destroyed by Nebachadnezzer. Their lives upended. But then Persia had become the dominant power in the…
An Advent sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho December 8, 2019 Isaiah 40:1-11 The Empire Strikes Back is not my favorite of the original three Star Wars movies. The ‘new hope’ of the first film seems to dissipate. Even though the Death Star had been destroyed, the Imperial Troops of the Empire…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho December 1, 2019 Jeremiah 33:14-18 Welcome to Advent! I know some of you think “Advent” is Latin for “why can’t we sing Christmas Carols yet?”, but in fact, adventus means arriving, or something about to begin. It is the beginning of the church year, and…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church for the third Sunday of Advent. Dec 16, 2018 Matthew 1:18-25 Have you ever looked at the families in Christmas advertisements and commercials? They are all beautiful. They wear outfits that are coordinating, but not too matchy matchy. They are uniformly happy and joyful. They are gathered together around…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho Advent 2, Dec 8, 2018 Isaiah 42:1-9 Our passage tonight is from a section in the book of Isaiah that speaks of God’s suffering servant. Other servant passages are in chapters 49, 50, 52, and 53, if you want to look at them this week.…
A sermon preached on a snowy first Sunday of Advent at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho Dec 2, 2018 Habakkuk 1: 1-7, 2:1-4, 3:17-19 I’m gonna bet that for many of you, this is the first sermon you’ve heard on the book of Habakkuk. It is certainly the first sermon I’ve ever preached on…
Glass Overflowing 