blip : Blogging Linear Interstellar Points :

This is the sermon I preached—it’s a continuation of my last one: Nests, part I. It starts out the same, but I take it a different direction half way through. I think it’s better than the one I didn’t preach. But who knows.
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Title: Hope and Nests, part II
Date: May 4th, 2008
Texts: Ps 68:1-10, 32-35; Ac [...]

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Here’s sermon I decided not to preach. I think it’s good, but I realized that it’s not necessarily what my church needs to hear—the Holy Spirit led me elsewhere at the last minute (it seems like God always interrupts a good thing). If you’re into politics, it may be interesting for you. The idea for [...]

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Title: Nests
Date: April 13, 2008
Texts: Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; I Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10

We have two blue birds living in our front yard. Last fall our neighbor gave Katie and me a bird house, and I put it up near the street this past January. That probably wasn’t the best place to put it. They [...]

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I’ve started writing short pieces for The Mennonite magazine. My first piece appeared in the April 1st issue: “Blessed are those who mourn.” Here’s an excerpt:
Mourning is worship. Sometimes we worship with our tears. To worship any differently would be dishonest and deny what Paul affirms: We preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23). We misunderstand [...]

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A few years ago, someone from our church went to Iraq with the Mennonite Central Committee to work for peace while our country waged war. During the Easter season of 2004, he sent us a letter, a dispatch from the front. Peter Dula wrote to us, “Jesus has indeed risen even if it was a [...]

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Title: Tombs and Gardens
Date: 3.23.08, Easter
Texts: Jn 20:1-18

John 20, verse 1: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed.” It was still dark. The night of Good Friday lingered into Easter morning. John doesn’t tell us [...]

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A foot-washing prayer from the Mennonite Hymnal, # 783:
Lord Jesus,  we have knelt before each other as you once knelt before your disciples, washing another’s feet. We have done what words stammer to express. Accept this gesture of love as a pledge of how we mean to live our lives. Bless us, as you promised, [...]

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This is the last of the unedited Lenten reflections I wrote of the Mennonite publication, Leader Magazine. Here are the other ones: Lent 1, Lent 2, Lent 3, Lent 4, Lent 5.
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Lent 6: Matthew 21:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11.

Jesus has traveled throughout Palestine proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, [...]

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Lent 5: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45.If there is any single characteristic of Lent, it is that we are humans—and that means we are mortal, we die. During the season of Lent, we contemplate that dark reality because we know that, as Paul says, “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from [...]

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Lent 4: I Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41.

The miraculous healing of the blind beggar shocks the people who knew him. They want to know more about what kind of power, and what kind of person, can work such incredible feats. They come to the beggar and ask, “Where is he?” And the [...]

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