A sermon preached for Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise Idaho April 19 2020 Mark 16:9-20 Last week on Easter, we heard the original ending of Mark’s Gospel, where the women encountered a man in the tomb who told them not to be alarmed, for Jesus has been raised, he is not here. And remember the…
An Easter sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho April 12, 2020 Mark 16:1-8 The sun was rising, and the details of the world were coming into focus as light dawned on a new day, plants turning from monochromatic shades to vibrant green, the dew reflecting like diamonds; lumpy shadows on the path…
A sermon preached on Good Friday at Southminster Presbyterian in Boise, Idaho. Mark 15:16-39 Psalm 22 Good Friday has not always been my favorite day in the church calendar. I love Ash Wednesday, with the sacred act of marking the cross in ash on the foreheads of the people I love, reminding them and reminding…
A sermon preached at (an empty) Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho on Palm Sunday April 5, 2020 Mark 11:1-11, 14:3-9 Mark tells us the crowds quote Psalm 118 as Jesus enters Jerusalem—“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”. This psalm is often sung at Passover, when the Hebrew people…
A sermon preached at (an empty) Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho March 22, 2020 Mark 12:28-44 Jesus has had lots of questions sent his way as he’s been journeying to Jerusalem. We have discussed how some of the questions were possibly ill advised. And some were intended to make the questioner look good. And…
Here’s the prayer I offered in our modified, live streamed worship service tonight. (The words are mine. It was inspired from a prayer in the Reform Jewish Prayer book, Mishkan T’filah—A Reform Siddur.) Let us pray: O God, we are in uncertain times. And we are adapting our schedules, our practices, our sports, our meetings,…
With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who wrote Love in the Time of Cholera, the world we’re in feels like it should be re-written by a magical realist. Because actual reality stinks. The World Health Organization has declared pandemic status for Covid-19, the coronavirus. The WHO Director General said, “WHO has been assessing this outbreak…
This is the letter being sent to the church today. In the hopes of catching people the email might miss, here it is again: Southminster Boise Health Plan March 12, 2020 As the news and concern over the COVID-19 situation continues, we at SPC are taking prudent steps in order to keep our community healthy.…
Mark 10:17-31 A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise on March 1, the first Sunday of Lent. We talked about questions the other night on Ash Wednesday. Jesus’ disciples had questions for him. But they were too afraid to ask them. Here, it is a whole different story. We have questions all over…
An Ash Wednesday Meditation February 26, 2020 Mark 9:30-37 We’ve been looking at Mark’s gospel the past month or so. And we’ve noticed that Mark keeps saying things like “let those with ears to hear, hear” or “let those with eyes to see, see”. Jesus understands that not everyone will understand Jesus, or his mission,…
Glass Overflowing 