Sermons (Page 125)
Ash Wednesday
One of the first functions I learned when using a computer was the infamous restart using “Control-Alt-Delete.” Whenever things weren’t going right, “Control-Alt-Delete.” When the computer froze and wouldn’t work, “Control-Alt-Delete.” And when I’d call for help the IT person often would say, “did you try restarting it with… Control-Alt-Delete?”…
Transfiguration of Our Lord
When was a time you were changed? Think about it – when in your life have you experienced something that transformed you? We can have many of these moments in life – falling in love, having a child, moving across the country, the death of a loved one. Whatever it may be, you can look at that moment and realize that you were not the same afterwards as you were before. Perhaps you’ve seen that transformation in others. Last year, I was blessed to see a small glimmer of transformation in a group of young people…
Seventh Sunday After Epiphany
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book entitled “The Tipping Point,” he challenges the reader to make a list of the people whose death would truly leave them devastated. Let’s try it – count the number of people. Gladwell says that twelve people is the average. Those people you listed make up what psychologists call our “sympathy group.” A sympathy group is that circle of people with whom we can closely connect. Often this group includes one’s extended family or ethnicity, and they become the in-group; everyone else in the world, by default, become the out-group.[1] What do we do with this biological tendency to make in-groups and out-groups? …