Have you ever played Telestrations? Or gone out backpacking and needed to find fresh water? If so, you know it's important to get as close to source as possible in order to get things right. So it's the same today. We'll explore what it means to consider the source, and to get close to it - even if it happens to move on us.

How do we think through Lent? How do we set our intentions for this time? We unpack that today as we how Jesus walks through the wildnerness journey at the beginning of his ministry.

Did you wake up before sunrise this morning? Did you stumble in the dark, or did you reach for a light? In a world that seems to prefer stumbling in darkness, we discuss what it means to be light.

We kick off our Epiphanytide series "Jesus, Emmanuel, Forever." If our New Years texts invite us to do the present work, how do we feel secure and ask the right questions? The texts today remind us it's a never-tiring Jesus who frames our safety and security. The question remains: what if the church asked if they truly lived out Jesus' call?

Joseph is a understated figure in the gospels. In fact, this is one of the few moments he's center stage... but would you want this kind of moment broadcasted to the world? We unfold that today, and that even when things are difficult, there is hope underneath.

Today we're talking about hope in repentance. Feels very "ugh," I know. But after watching Home Alone this week, you realize that movie is almost exclusively about changes of heart, which is what repentance is. So we're gonna talk about Home Alone.

So what's it like when you don't have much power, but you're seeking justice? Well, you just keep showing up. That's what we discuss today.

The borderlands are a thin place. Gloria Anzaldúa says they're “a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us.” She writes that while borders “are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them … ” a “borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary … the prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.” So what does it mean when Jesus meets people in the borderlands? How are their identities changed? We explore that with the ten lepers today.

We had quite a week at SJPC last week. Not only did we prep for World Communion and Ian, but we also had an immigrant family show up on our doorstep, and we had a chance to care for them on Friday. It's easy to pat ourselves on the back for these kind of things, but in the gospel today, we're challenged to reconsider. Sometimes in our journey, we'll called just to do the things asked of us just because it's the thing we're supposed to do. However, when we do them, we can be amazed by the results.

So Jesus is totally scandalous here in Luke 16. Almost inconsistent. How do we celebrate someone who is literally dishonest (and, as said in the sermon, there's no way to get out of the "not right"-ness of the manager)? Well, it may be in the focus on the ends and a willingness to use whatever means available. We unfold that, with attention given to the complimentary Amos 8 passage as well.

I haven't typically uploaded my funeral service homilies of late, but for any of you that might be clergy or clergy-to-be, I hope that these might be helpful at times.

This morning comes one of the more difficult passages in the Gospels - we have to hate our families and ourselves to follow Jesus? Some of the issue is in translation, yes, but it's also an issue of intention: Jesus wants us to have a gut-check before we commit to what's in store. What if we saw ourselves and others and their precious, priceless hearts and souls the same way? We talk about that today.

Rounding out our Sermon Madness series today, we turn to John and the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet to understand showing Grace and Mercy to Others. There's a great little saying that's used for grace and mercy: Grace is giving people what they don't deserve, and mercy is not giving people what they do deserve. But that all hinges on "deserve," a word closely related to worth. In a world that so often index worth to production, we can treat grace and mercy like something to be earned. But Jesus shows otherwise, even to the protest of Simon Peter. But in order for grace and mercy to really occur, we have to somehow receive it ourselves with a new sense of "deserving."

Almost taboo amongst the more genteel sort, we don't tend to talk about the confluence of Christianity and Patriotism. That silence leads to limited examination at times. Or, it means that those who are particularly loud get to run the show - a little like Mean Girls. Could it be that really, we've lost the balance of what we offer to the state and what we offer to God? Luke 20 opens up that conversation, and we consider patriotism through that lens.