Blogging on the Cross at the Jesus Creed
Scot McKnight, who hosts the popular Jesus Creed blog, has invited me to post a series of reflections during Lent on Fleming Rutledge‘s new book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus. I...
View ArticleSpitting in Sin’s Face
This past weekend was my official return to Aldersgate after a year on medical leave. Returning meant more to my family and me than we could have anticipated, and we’re grateful for the warm...
View ArticleThe Downside of Itinerancy: From ‘Bless Her Heart’ to ‘I Will Miss Her’
I’m closing in on my 11th year of serving this particular congregation and more so every day I’m convinced there is fruit in ministry that only becomes possible with a longer measure of time. For...
View ArticleThe Most Common American Heresy
I’ve had funerals and death on the brain this past week. It comes with the job. I’m just happy that for the first time in over a year it’s not my own death and funeral that’s lingering on the brain....
View ArticleWhen I Hate My Job
I’d made it as far the Jersey line, headed to Princeton for a week-long con ed course on philanthropy. Just shy of the bridge, ordering coffee at Peets, I received a text about a 12 year old in my...
View ArticleThe Greatest in the Kingdom
Many of you have messaged me to ask for the funeral sermon for Joshua, the 6th grade boy in our community that we buried this weekend. He died of cancer. The sermon is by no means adequate. I can only...
View ArticleEpisode 44: Thomas Lynch – Every Casket Asks Whither
“…the meaning of life is connected, inextricably, to the meaning of death; mourning is a romance in reverse, and if you love, you grieve and there are no exceptions—only those who do it well and those...
View ArticleEpisode 48: Kenneth Tanner – Our #1 Fan
For Episode #48 (#50 is fast approaching), we talked with our #1 Fan, Kenneth Tanner. Who is Kenneth Tanner? Ken is best known for his Facebook memes. No, they are not memes about cats playing a piano...
View ArticleI Desire Sacrifice Not Mercy
Here’s my Good Friday sermon from tonight, using the lectionary text from Hebrews 10.11-25 On Ash Wednesday, I suffered my monthly battery of labs and oncological consultation in advance of my day...
View ArticleWhat to Say When There’s Nothing to Say
Here’s a piece I wrote recently for the United Methodist ‘Rethinking Church’ website. Here’s the original link. I was in the emergency room, standing behind the paper curtain, holding a mother who...
View ArticleEpisode 99- Jason Jones: Limping But Blessed
Though it was hard, interviews like this one make me grateful and proud to be doing the podcast with my friends. For Father’s Day, we offer you this conversation that Teer and I did with Jason Jones...
View ArticleMore than the Diamond Glints of Snow or the Winds that Blow: Sermon for a...
For my last act at Aldersgate Church before moving to Annandale United Methodist Church, I buried a 14 year old boy who in a foolish, impetuous act took his own life. It was an accident in the...
View ArticleA Graveside Wedding
Graveside services are tricky. Families expect more than a drive-by dirt throwing, but invariably it’s cold or hot or rainy or windy and there’s never enough seats. I admire Catholic priests— its more...
View ArticleThe Art of Living Posthumously
Ash Wednesday — Romans 7 “We die the way we live,” says BJ Miller, a palliative care doctor at a facility called Zen Hospice in San Francisco, “and all of us are dying.” I heard Miller give a TED Talk...
View ArticleWearing the Sermon on Ash Wednesday
It’s exactly a year ago the GI doctor called me the night after my CT scan and asked if I was sitting down. I missed Ash Wednesday last year. The year before immediately after the Ash Wednesday Service...
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