Sermons by Rev. Jason S. Glombicki

Last week’s gospel introduced us to John the Baptist. We heard John’s message of repentance and its connection to the prophet Isaiah. But there wasn’t much meat about what repentance looks like, how it functions, or the purpose of it. But, this week is different as the story continued. We that heard the substance of John’s message was, as one colleague put it, “harsh, urgent, and concrete.”…

Today’s gospel reading has at least two parts – (1) a list of leaders and rulers and (2) the beginning of John the Baptist’s teaching. If you’re anything like me, I often want to skim past lists of names to get to the good part. A lot of times I cannot contextualize the names and frankly, I often fumble the pronunciation of their names as well. But these three short verses are not ones we want to zoom past. While they certainly give us some historical context to the environment in which John began his ministry, they also make a key theological claim…

Today we finish our year-long study of Mark’s gospel. It is the last time we’ll hear from Mark until November 29, 2026. This final reading wasn’t the chronological ending of Mark’s story– that was the empty tomb we studied on Easter. Nor did the lectionary bring us back to the beginning with a quote from Isaiah and John the Baptist – remember, there was no birth narrative in Mark. Rather, we are left in the middle of the gospel in what is often called the “little apocalypse.”…