A sermon for the people of God at Bethesda United Church of Christ Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Matthew 4:22 INTRODUCTION The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) each have a version of this story – of fishermen leaving behind their nets to follow this itinerant rabbi who invites… [Read More]

What are your names and how are you known?  These may seem like the same question, but they are not exactly.  Our given name may or may not reflect how we are known.  In addition to our given names, we may be known by our nick names, terms of endearment, or other names that might… [Read More]

Our story begins, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.  John would have prevented him…” It’s a phrase worth lingering over.  “John would have prevented him…”  The powerful John initially stops Jesus in his tracks on the banks of the Jordan.  “No, no,” John says.  You can… [Read More]

Have you ever walked into a room only to forget the reason why you came?  You walk downstairs and all of the sudden whatever seemed so pressing, so urgent, simply evaporates into thin air.  You frantically search in your mind for whatever it was that brought you into this place and at this particular time… [Read More]

The other day, I was here at church and working at my desk.  Before I left for the evening, I went to find our custodian, Doris, to let her know that I would be leaving the building and to lock up.  I found her cleaning in the back hallway and she briefly paused in her… [Read More]

Some members of my family believe in signs.  Find a random penny on the sidewalk and, to them, that particular penny is no longer random and no longer meaningless on the sidewalk.  Discover an object one has long since forgotten, and you start to consider why you found this object NOW after searching all over… [Read More]

Let’s jump right into this text, shall we?  There is something deeply disturbing about reading about human companions being divided somehow and taken—one disappearing and one staying—in the middle of their daily tasks. There is something unsettling and unusual about being called to remember Noah, and the story of the flood, this close to our… [Read More]

On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.  In the last few sentences of his Proclamation, Lincoln says this: “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart… [Read More]