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Staff Trax

Love in Action

Follow Me! That is what Jesus says to Peter, and to all of us who proclaim with our lips that we love Jesus. Don’t you just love Peter? If there is one thing we can say about Peter, it is that he was consistent. He consistently bumbled around as he tried to figure out what Jesus expected of him and what God was calling him to do. We first heard about Peter in John’s Gospel in the first chapter.…

Doubters Welcome

Do you believe in miracles? I don’t mean a miracle like KU beating Alabama in football, although that would be quite the miracle! No, I mean the kind of miracle that defies all natural rules of life. I mean, do you believe in miracles like the Resurrection of Jesus Christ? Now, before you say “yes” because, after all, you’re sitting here in church, know you are in good company if you say…

Love Wins!

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24:5). Now we do not know who all the women were that went to the tomb that first Easter morning, but according to Luke we do know three of them by name and that there were at least five: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.(24:10). Don’t…

Love Commanded

So, how did you like the foot washing? I noticed that most of you preferred to wash hands instead. Why was that? We really don’t like to show our feet to other people, do we? And, we really don’t like to touch other people’s feet? Our feet tend to often be dirty and a little smelly, don’t they? Many of us don’t like to touch our own feet, let alone someone else’s. But feet can also be…

A Love Story

We’ve heard a lot of Scripture today, haven’t we? We began our morning by reading Luke’s version of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. And we heard Paul’s words to the Philippians as he encouraged his followers: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but…

An Unexpected Love

So here we are on the 5th Sunday in Lent, and instead of hearing from the Gospel of Luke, as we will on most Sundays this year, our Gospel story today is from the Gospel of John.

So, let me set the scene for you. Jesus has been preaching and teaching and healing throughout Galilee for quite some time and he has become famous. Now, unlike the other Gospel stories, in this Gospel,…

Perfect Love Freely Given

“Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus.] And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:1-2)

Reading these two verses reminds me of me. I have to confess, I am guilty of often looking around and comparing myself to others. I often try to justify my actions based on the bad actions…

The Love of Grace

Today, we begin with the age-old question of why do bad things happen, or more precisely, why do bad things happen to good people? Why? We always want to know the why, and, of course, in Jesus’ day, the assumption was if something bad happened to you then you weren’t living right. You had done something wrong, or maybe your parents had done something wrong, that caused God to be angry with you,…

Love What You Do

Last week I spoke about how we ought to love who we are. After all, we are children of God. We are created in God’s image and we are those God has commanded to care for and nurture all of God’s creation. So if we are to love who we are, it only makes sense to me that we ought to also love what we do. That is, if we love who we are and the gifts God has given each of us individually, and communally,…

Love Who You Are

Now, just before the start of our story today, Luke had told of Jesus’ baptism. Luke said that while Jesus was praying right after his baptism, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:21-22) and then, much like we heard in the Transfiguration story from last week, God spoke, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."…

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