Staff Trax

Maundy Thursday is a day we come together to hear God tell us to do two things; remember and remember. In our story from Exodus, God was ready to free his people and he commanded them to prepare a feast to celebrate their freedom and then to do this every year, so that they would remember. Every time they had this feast they were to remember that it is God who offers them true freedom. To…

Here we are, the final week of Lent. In the church we call this Holy Week and it begins today with Palm Sunday. What an odd day, though! We began our time of worship with a celebration, but then the story quickly changes to one of betrayal, pain, grief and sorrow as we read the story of Jesus final days before his crucifixion. Many look at this day and week and think of it as a depressing…

Well, here we are, the month of April has begun and we have only two weeks left in the season of Lent. As I have shared with you before, April is a month filled with mixed emotions for me. It is the month of my birthday. It's the month that I first asked my wife out 41 years ago. It is the month that my son and daughter-in-law were married 10 years ago. It is the month that my grandfather…

Did you know that we are not born with full sight? Infants have sight, but not as most of us know it. A new born only sees in black and white and some shades of gray. Experts tell us that it usually takes about five months for an infant to begin to use both eyes together to see three-dimensionally and for the eyes to develop fully to be able to see full color. In essence, we learned to…

I began my sermon last week by commenting that there was so much to talk about in that text, John 3:1-17, that to cover it all would have taken all day. Well, today, and for the next several weeks, the same is true. Our lectionary for this Lent is filled with powerful texts that offer incredible insight into not only who Jesus is, but also what is expected of us, his followers. So, allow…

Wow, there is so much going on in this text today that if you wanted me to attempt to address it all, you would have to cancel the rest of your plans for the day. There is the imagery of water and Spirit. There is the imagery of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness. There is the imagery of God’s Spirit being like the wind and blowing wherever and however it chooses. There is…

The celebration is over. I know, it was fun to celebrate Christmas and even the Season of Epiphany where we talked about all those miracles Jesus did and heard about how God revealed Jesus to the world, but it is time to stop celebrating. It is time, now, to enter a period of journeying in the wilderness so that we might better understand the challenges we face in our lives and how we might…

For the past several weeks we have been reading through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which according to Matthew, came at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. But today, we fast-forward into the heart of Jesus ministry. Much has happened since Jesus gave that long sermon to his disciples. He has traveled throughout the country sharing the good news of God’s kingdom. He has healed many.…

Jesus can’t be serious, can he? Turn the other cheek? If someone wants your coat, give it to him or her? If you are forced to carry someone’s backpack for a mile, don’t stop there, carry it an extra mile for them? Love your enemies and pray for them? This is ridiculous, after all, when it comes to God’s law, God did say, “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury…

My guess is that most of us have an image of God in our heads. I suspect that our image of God is based a lot on what we have come to expect from God. For some of us, we might think of someone like a judge. You know, a person in a robe, sitting at a desk with a gavel. In the U.S. we might think of God like a Supreme Court Justice. Still others might imagine an old man with a white beard,…