Pentecost +7 Rev. Connor Searle Good morning! It’s good to be here with you. It’s good to see so many familiar faces and so many new faces. For those of you I don’t know, my name is Connor Searle. I’m a deacon with a ministry in the Lutheran tradition affectionately tagged “Hope for all Sinners…
Giving Freely Pentecost +6 Rev. Doug Floyd Our lessons today call attention to the poor and particularly the responsibility of God’s people to open their hands to the needy in the land. In the Deuteronomy passage, Moses calls the people to give freely and not grudgingly to the poor brother. We are not told the…
Compelled By Love Pentecost +5 Rev. Doug Floyd 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 As our second lesson today opens Paul says, “For the love of Christ controls us.” I just want to think about that phrase to begin with. The love of Christ controls us. That word control, often it’s translated compels, which sounds a little nicer…
Sabbath Shalom Rev. Doug Floyd Ezekiel 31:1-14, Psalm 92, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, Mark 4:26-34 After traveling the world for over 20 years to document humans in their various contexts, Sebastio Salgado lost faith in humanity and was ready to give up photography forever. He had photographed several war zones, but the impact of photography the…
Sabbath in Exile Rev. Doug Floyd Psalm 130 In the novel, Big Rock Candy Mountain, Elsa Mason feels the weight of being trapped in a life, in a marriage of struggle and sadness. She left her husband once but eventually returned. She feels she cannot leave again, so she must find a way to live…
Remembering Sabbath Pentecost +2 Rev. Doug Floyd June 3, 2018 Deuteronomy 5:6-21, Psalm 81, 1 Corinthians 4:1-12, Mark 2:23-28 “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” As Jesus replies to the Pharisees question about the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath, he reminds them that Sabbath is a gift not a…
Koinonia May 24, 2018 Doug Floyd Exodus 3:1-6, Psalm 93, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-16 I was blessed with a friend in college named Jim. He had a dry sense of humor and often made laugh out loud. We spent a great deal of time together and I came to see his deep hunger and thirst…
Isaac BradshawPentecost 2018 Acts 2:1-11, Psalm 104:25-35, 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, John 20:19-23 Billy Wilder is one of those figures in film history that has never truly died. He was a master of the art of filmmaking, and like DW Griffths and Orson Welles before him, he purified and distilled all the changes in the filmmakers…
Rev. Doug Floyd Sunday After Ascension 2018 Today is the Sunday after Ascension, and I want to reflect a little on ascension. Every time I try to write something about ascension, it quickly becomes too theological and quickly, I feel like people will lose interest. It will be difficult. It is one of these grand themes…
Easter 6 Rev. Doug Floyd John 15:9-17 Born to a wealthy and influential business man, Toyohiko Kagawa was orphaned by the age of four. His mother was a concubine of the businessman and his wife adopted Toyohiko as the sole heir of the father. He grew up in a wealthy Japanese home in the early…