A few years ago a friend sent me a link to this video, and I’ve continued enjoying watching it from time to time. I thought of it again this week as I know how many of our congregations get “kick-started” after the summer is over and school and other activities get going again. What I like about the video is that it illustrates a number of misperceptions of church – that the people have it all together, have the answers their looking for, etc. – and invite us to imagine the opposite – that church is where you go when you don’t have it together, are searching for answers, and so on. It reminds me that although there are plenty...
Luke 9:37-43a
posted by DJL
On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It throws him into convulsions until he foams at...
Who’s Testing Your Sermons?
posted by DJL
This past weekend, I listened to an interview of Ian Knauer, author of The Farm: Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Food. Knauer got his start in the “food business” by testing recipes for Gourmet Magazine. What was interesting was that Gourmet hired him not for what he knew about cooking, but what he didn’t know. As Knauer explains: I had not been to culinary school, which is the reason I got the job. I was an avid home cook — I loved to cook from magazines and cookbooks — but I wasn’t trained. That was important to them because they wanted someone who would cook like a home cook. The reason that I was...
Luke 9:28-36
posted by DJL
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They...
Autumn Movement
posted by DJL
Commuting from Philadelphia to St. Paul this fall – and with multiple side trips ranging from North Dakota to Virginia and the Carolinas — I’ve been more sensitive than usual to the common rhythm of seasonal change and to the diverse ways that change occurs in different parts of the...
Luke 9:23-27
posted by DJL
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole...
Friendship as Solidarity
posted by DJL
I love television commercials. Actually, that’s not really accurate. Most often, I hate television commercials because I experience them as interruptions of whatever I’m watching, as all-too-often inane sale pitches, and sometimes as downright insulting with regard to the various stereotypes they perpetuate. At the same time, though, from time to time I am surprised, delighted, even inspired by commercials, and that’s when I love them. Sometimes it’s simply that they make me chuckle, as with the VW ad about the little boy playing Darth Vadar. Other times, I’m actually captivated and given insight not only into our popular culture...
Luke 9:18-22
posted by DJL
Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They answered, “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I...
Faith and Ethnicity
posted by DJL
Can we be more than an ethnic church? That’s the question I’ve been pondering since reading an article in this morning’s Star Tribune about the loss of ethnic identity in Minnesota. The author, focusing in particular on the descendants of German, Norwegian, and Swedish immigrants of the...
Luke 9:12-17
posted by DJL
The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.” But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They...
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