Chapter 2 in Mike Slaughter’s Christmas is Not Your Birthday is called “Giving up on perfect.” He talks about the way that Christmas has become a time when we put enormous pressure on ourselves to make it the perfect experience. I’ve been a little sheepish to hear all the chit-chat that other people have been making about all the decorations that they’re putting up: the lights, the tree, etc. So let me just come out and say that my family... Read more
So how many of you know something about John the Baptist? If you had to describe him in one word, what would it be? What about humble? Well it’s not the first word that comes to my mind either. Some of you know that Pastor Larry and I try to preach on the same passage each week. So when Pastor Larry told me the topic for this week was humility and the model for humility was John the Baptist, I... Read more
So how many of you know something about John the Baptist? If you had to describe him in one word, what would it be? What about humble? Well it’s not the first word that comes to my mind either. Some of you know that Pastor Larry and I try to preach on the same passage each week. So when Pastor Larry told me the topic for this week was humility and the model for humility was John the Baptist, I... Read more
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God. [Isaiah 61:1-2] (more…) Read more
Sermon preached at Lifesign, Burke UMC 12/3/2011 Text: 2 Peter 3:8-15 Have you ever wanted to hit the reset button on life? I remember the original Nintendo had two buttons: power on the left and reset on the right. And whenever my friends would talk too much smack about beating me at a game, I could always hit the reset button so that the score would disappear and we would start over from scratch. I’ve had a similar feeling in... Read more
Isaiah 40 is our Old Testament reading for Advent this week. Isaiah 40 is famous for being the prophetic text about John the Baptist: “the voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord,” etc. But I was drawn to a different aspect of the passage when I read it: All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath... Read more
The word “glory” is one of those Biblical words that we use a lot without necessarily contemplating what it really means. I know there’s a movie Glory about black soldiers fighting in the Civil War that I’ve never seen. In one of my favorite childhood Disney Channel movies, The Fighting Prince of Donegal, Prince Hugh says before the climactic battle, “The greatest glory shall go to him who takes the greatest risk.” And then of course, there’s the popular church... Read more
For the duration of Advent, I’m going to be focusing my blog posts on the concept of “occupying” the manger of Jesus, or making it our central focus in a time when so many things are competing for our attention. Every week in Advent, there is an Old Testament reading, a psalm, a gospel reading, and an epistle reading. I will be looking to these for inspiration as well as Mike Slaughter’s book Christmas is Not Your Birthday, which we... Read more
Sermon preached at Burke UMC 11/26-27/2011 Text: Isaiah 64:1-9 David Lahti, a British biologist, wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper this week asking “Why does religion keep telling us we’re bad?” Lahti argues that humans have evolved into a relatively “cooperative, sympathetic, even loving species.” He gives the example of an airplane flight, saying that in comparison to other hominids, like gorillas or orangutans, it’s remarkable that a bunch of unrelated adult males can sit together with fertile females... Read more
I really don’t know much about Tim Tebow. I haven’t ever watched him play because I don’t really have time to watch pro football since Sunday is a workday for pastors. Sunday afternoon is a time to reach out to visitors and make pastoral care visits. And whenever I get done with that, I sleep. Plus, ever since my family moved to Durham from Houston in 1992, I’ve been more of a college basketball guy than a pro football guy.... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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