A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho July 5 2020 Genesis 25:19-34 As a mother of sons, not twins, but sons, I confess that this passage gives me pause. My boys are wonderful young men, and I can’t quite imagine Elliott trying to buy Alden’s birthright for a chicken burrito, but I…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho June 21, 2020 Gen 21:8-21 We pick up the biblical story today in the middle of the story of Abraham and Sarah. God has promised Abraham that his offspring will be more numerous than the stars in the sky. Many nations will arise from his…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho June 7 2020 Gen 1:1–2:4 Welcome to Trinity Saturday, which is where the lectionary writers punish preachers who had so much fun last week on Pentecost Sunday by expecting us to make the Doctrine of the Trinity clear for each of you. Just kidding. I…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise Idaho May 31 2020 Acts 2:1-21 If you recall, last week we left our disciples standing there, jaws agape, staring into Heaven as Jesus ascended up to God. But before Jesus ascended, he told them to go and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho. March 31, 2019 Matthew 25:1-13 Let me start out by saying I’m opposed to the very premise of this parable, opposed to the idea that women should be sitting around in the dark, just waiting for some guy to show up. I know, I know.…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho June 18, 2017 Psalm 13 I acknowledge, this psalm is a bit of a bummer. How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? It is quite a contrast, in most ways, to the one we heard last week, that was full of turning toward…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho November 6, 2016 Jonah 1:1-17; 3:1-10; 4:1-11 We humans often have a bad habit of “othering” people. By that, I mean we look at someone’s life that seems very different than our own, and we place them in some category at a remove from our…
I spoke Sunday evening at a peace vigil in response to last week’s shootings of unarmed black men in Baton Rouge and a Minneapolis suburb. You can read my remarks here. As I was preparing my words, and even as I was waiting to speak, I felt like a fraud. I wasn’t sure why I was…
It was a bad week. So it is good for us to gather together. There were two high profile shootings of men of color by police last week–Alton Sterling and Philando Castile–one in Baton Rouge and one in the Minneapolis suburbs. There were two other similar deaths that didn’t get much news at all. They…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian in Boise, Idaho July 9, 2016 Job 3:1-10, Job 4:1-9, Job 7:11-21 Our first reading tonight from chapter 3 is from a horrible and beautiful poem in Job’s own voice, where he curses the day of his own birth. This is not just “woe is me!”. This is deep…
Glass Overflowing 