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The Goodness of Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:4a)

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The photo today is a picture I took of my back yard at sunrise after moving into our home. There is something holy about watching the sun rise after a long night. The quiet light slowly spreads across the sky, revealing trees, fields, birds, and faces once hidden in darkness. In those moments, it can feel as though creation itself is waking up again. Genesis begins with that same movement from darkness into light, from emptiness into abundance, from chaos into beauty. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” (v. 1), God spoke life into being and called it good. ( Read today’s text ) Again and again throughout Genesis 1, God delights in creation. Light is good. The earth is good. The seas and skies are good. Plants, animals, and human beings are all declared good. Finally, after creating humankind in his image, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (v. 31). This opening chapter reminds us that creation is not an accident or a burden to...
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Shelter in the Middle of Sorrow (Psalm 34)

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Today is Memorial Day.  Memorial Day often carries a mixture of emotions. For some, it is a day of gratitude and remembrance. For others, it opens wounds that still ache deeply. A folded flag, an empty chair, a familiar photograph, or even the sound of a patriotic song can awaken memories of people we love and miss. We remember those who gave their lives, and we also remember the weight carried by those who returned. In moments like these, Psalm 34 offers words of comfort that feel both honest and hopeful. Psalm 34 is traditionally associated with a desperate, humiliating moment in David’s life, when he feigned madness to escape danger and found himself with nowhere left to turn. And yet, from that low place, he wrote one of Scripture’s most tender testimonies: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears” (v. 4). Not after the fear passed. Not once things were better. In the middle of it. That is where God met him. What makes this psalm so remarkab...
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When the Spirit Comes (Acts 2:1-21)

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I confess that I have always been time conscious during worship. I see to it that there is a clock I can always look at during worship. This started at the very beginning of my ministry when a served a three-point charge (in Methodist lingo that just means I had three churches). I had to make sure I finished one service with enough time to start the next. Be honest: we like our worship to begin and end on time, our prayers to feel familiar, and our sense of God to remain comfortably within reach. And then we open Acts 2 , and everything we thought we knew about how God works gets blown wide open. Quite literally. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, ...
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Spirit, Teach Me! (John 14:15-17, 25-26; 16:13)

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As we get ready celebrate Pentecost in our worship this Sunday, I wanted to take a look at a few verses from John’s Gospel. 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you. … 25 ”I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. ... 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 14:15-17, 25-26; 16:13, NRSVue) On the night before the cross, Jesus spoke words of comfort and promise to his disciples: “I w...
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The Promise of Pentecost and the Call to Mission (Sermon)

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This was one of those Sundays that I ended up skipping my prepared sermon outline and going in a different direction . I ran the audio recording through a transcriber to produce this manuscript of the sermon as I preached it: May 17, 2026, Seventh Sunday after Easter (Year A), at Ebenezer UMC and Black Creek UMC. This is the text of the sermon as preached at Black Creek.   Next Sunday is Pentecost. We sometimes refer to that day as the birthday of the church because that is when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the people gathered in Jerusalem at the temple for the Jewish festival of Pentecost. Part of the celebration of that festival was to commemorate the giving of the law through Moses. And so, here people were gathered to hear the preaching of the apostles, and they received the word of God through that preaching as the Holy Spirit was poured upon them. Today, this Sunday before Pentecost, we look at what took plac e just before that, when Jesus met with his disciples for for...
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Belonging (1 Corinthians 12:3-13)

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I mentioned earlier that Wesley said that there is not such thing as solitary religion. You can’t be a Christian by yourself. Life is not meant to be lived in isolation. We need people to serve and people to serve with. Our faith must be more that “me and Jesus” we are called in community to be sent forth as “the Body of Christ, redeemed by his blood” (from the Great Thanksgiving). We are created for connection, for belonging, for a shared purpose that is bigger than any one of us. Paul speaks to this deep truth in 1 Corinthians 12:3-13. He writes that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” In other words, even our first steps toward Christ are stirred by grace that reaches for us before we ever reach back. The Holy Spirit draws us into the life of God and into the life of the community. Paul goes on to say that “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit” (v. 4) and that “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (v. 7) The Sp...
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Rejoicing in Suffering (Colossians 1:24)

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In Epistle to the Colossians 1:24, Paul writes one of his most challenging and easily misunderstood statements: “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” At first glance, it can sound as though Paul is saying Christ’s suffering on the cross was somehow incomplete. But throughout his letters, Paul consistently teaches that Christ’s saving work is fully sufficient. Just a few verses earlier, Paul says that through Christ, God was pleased “to reconcile to himself all things” through the blood of the cross (v. 20). So Paul cannot mean that Jesus’ atoning sacrifice was lacking in saving power. Instead, Paul is speaking about the ongoing suffering connected to the mission of Christ in the world. Christ’s redemptive work is complete, but the church continues to carry the message of the gospel into a broken world, and that mission often involves hardship, sacrifi...
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