Sermons

I’d like to start by acknowledgingthat we’ve deviated from the lectionary textfor today’s gospel reading.Many thanks to Archbishop Skeltonfor giving us permission to do thatas we launch the New Wineskins Capital Campaign.You may have noticed the thermometers in the narthexas you walked in! About six weeks agowe heard the passagessurrounding these four versesthat we hear

-Parables — meant to tease. Lots of possible interpretations-Chapter full of them. What part doesn’t make sense?-Jesus provides an interpretation but may not be the only interpretation-Usual use of interpretation focuses on us. What kind of soil am I?-But that makes sense and is easily explained-Read parable again-What doesn’t make sense? Gardeners and farmers, what’s

Following Jesus, proclaiming that the kingdom of of heaven has come near, living how he taught to live, and enacting God’s unlimited love… is going to cause problems in interpersonal relationships. When Jesus talks about people close to us that doesn’t just mean families. It means literal neighbors, too.

On the surface, todays Gospel reading is straight forward. Jesus sends the disciples out on mission, tells them to whom they should go, gives them travelling instructions and warns them of the cranky people they will encounter. AAA and Rick Steve’s Travel Guides.When Joseph asked me to preach this Sunday, I read the passage from

The passages we hear today aren’t about us and how we’re supposed to act. The passages today are about God: God’s deep love for humanity, God’s desire for us to be in right relationship, and God’s willingness to short-circuit certain rules because the healthy don’t need a physician.