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Sermo Dei: Rorate Coeli 2014
The Fourth Sunday of Advent John 1:19-28; Philippians 4:4-7 December 21, 2014 Advent says, “He is coming!” Christ is coming, to be your judge. You are not ready to meet Him, if you have not...
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Sermo Dei: Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols 2014
After this, we go home. Or maybe to a relative’s, or to a party. Rich food, strong drink, festive music. And gifts. After this we go home. What if you could not? What if there were no gifts? Would that...
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Sermo Dei: Christmas Day 2014
In the beginning, God made us. He made us creatures. We belong to Him. It was the Word who, in the beginning, made us (John 1:1-14). He made us, creatures. “Without him was not any thing made that was...
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Sermo Dei: Christmas I (observed)
With every Bible passage, we have to ask two questions: First, what does it mean? And Second, how does it apply to me? For the first question, What does it mean?, we use grammar, history, and context....
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Sermo Dei: Epiphany 1, 2015
A friend of mine was unemployed, and he said the hardest thing about meeting people during that period was the second question everyone asks, after your name: “What do you do?” Our work—or...
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Epiphany 1 Chapel Sermon
Has anybody ever asked you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” If you had asked me that question when I was a little boy, I would have said that I wanted to operate big construction equipment....
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Sermo Dei: Baptism of Our Lord 2015
Approaching the waters, Jesus announces, “I am a sinner.” John knows better. “No You are not. While in the waters of my mother’s womb I leaped for joy, for the Righteous One has come at last.” Still...
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Sermo Dei: The Confession of St. Peter
Dear friends in Christ Jesus, today is a glad day: Benjamin Alexander, son of Aaron, today becomes son of God through the waters of rebirth and renewal. It is also a sad time. [REDACTED] have lost the...
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Sermo Dei: The Conversion of St. Paul 2015
A storm was coming. Those in its rumored path were terrified. They had heard how this storm struck in Jerusalem, killing their friend Stephen. This storm was named Saul. But standing in his path was...
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Sermo Dei: Sexagesima 2015
“I can’t go on like this. I’m at my breaking point. I can’t take it anymore!” Have you said words like these? Have you spent a day or a decade feeling like your situation is untenable? Work, family,...
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Sermo Dei: Ash Wednesday 2015
First of a four-part series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Stations on the Road to Freedom.” “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a...
View ArticleSermo Dei: Reminiscere 2015
I was in the emergency room visiting someone, when a woman’s voice crackled through the din: “Is there anybody here to care about me?” The voice was of a person in pain not only in body but in mind:...
View ArticleSermo Dei: Oculi 2015
Kingdoms among men have risen – and fallen. Great empires—the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Roman—and more modern powers. None of them could last, and if the world continues, this great republic in...
View ArticleStations on the Road to Freedom: Action (2nd Lent Midweek 2015)
Last week we heard the first station on what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Road to Freedom, Discipline: If you would find freedom, learn above all to discipline your senses and your soul. Be not led...
View ArticleStations on the Road to Freedom: Suffering (3rd Lent Midweek 2015)
We have this Lent been considering the Dietrich Bonhoeffer poem Stations on the Road to Freedom. The first station is Discipline: If you would find freedom, learn above all to discipline your senses...
View ArticleStations on the Road to Freedom: Death (4th Lent Midweek 2015)
On the morning of April 8, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was being held in a makeshift prison in Schönberg. Some of Bonhoeffer’s fellow prisoners, including a Roman Catholic and an atheist, asked...
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Annunciation 2015 (ILS Choral Vespers)
Nothing is more offensive to the human mind than that a baby could be God. We like the idea of growth, progress, achievement. If you work hard enough, then someday you’ll get into a good high school,...
View ArticleSermo Dei: Palmarum 2015
One was angry with Him, the other confused. They were sisters, and their brother was dead. Do you know the panic, when you’ve called for help, and help is not coming fast enough? Do you know the...
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Sermo Dei: Holy Thursday 2015
It is mere hours before His arrest. This is His last meal before His crucifixion, and Jesus knows it. What Jesus does at this time, therefore, must be the most important of all things that He could do....
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Sermo Dei: Good Friday 2015
For a purpose God made man. He endowed the man and woman with gifts, and called them to be like God. Through childbearing they would become participants in God’s ongoing act of creation; through...
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