If you’ve been to University Lutheran recently, you know that we started a sermon series called “Saints”. We started it on November 1st, All Saints Day, but we’re taking it through the sometimes dark and menacing texts of that show up at the end of the church year. The end of the church year is…
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Common courtesy dictates that one should not talk about religion, politics, or sex. It also dictates that my newsletter articles should be at most 500 words long. I am dispensing with common courtesy for the most part for this week’s newsletter article. At least I’m not talking about sex in this missive. This past Tuesday…
“My cup runneth over,” that is the way that the King James Version states a line in Psalm 23. Another translation says, “my cup overflows.” This overflow is a reality of our Christian faith. We recognize that we don’t just receive what we need, but that our cups are filled to overflowing – we have…
On my bookshelf I have a book entitled “The Next Reformation”. If you search Amazon, you can find plenty of books that are titled in similar ways: the next Reformation, the new Reformation, Reformation again, etc. I get what those book titles are getting at, but I think in some ways, all of those titles…
Recently a friend of mine challenged me to think of the negative phrase that I tell myself most often. The phrase that came to the top for me was “I’m letting people down.” It doesn’t take me long to look around and see expectations that I have of myself, expectations that I have signed myself…
The final blessing in our worship services, also called “the Benediction” is a piece of Scripture from Numbers 6. That piece of Scripture repeats God’s instructions to Moses, who is to hand down instructions to Aaron to bless the people by saying: ” The Lord bless you, and keep you. The Lord make His face…
The word “vocation” sounds awfully fancy. When you translate it a little, though, you find that it means “calling”. That is a little clearer, but sometimes even the word “calling” can be a little confusing. We maybe start to think of God calling little Samuel in the tabernacle, or Samuel later anointing David, or some…
If Jesus is a King, then what does He reign over? This question is something that seems to stump a lot of people when I ask it. After searching around, a lot of times people come up with “well, He rules over everything.” This is a great answer and fits in very well with Paul…
I have been reading a lot about a term lately, that term is “habitus”. This word has quite a bit to do with my doctoral research that I’m getting into. The term has been used by the likes of Aristotle, Aquinas, Augustine, Melanchthon, Luther, and most recently a French sociologist named Pierre Bourdieu. The term…
I’m what many people would call a “religious professional.” As a religious professional, prayer is a part of my job. I’m lucky in that way — but that is not to say that I’m “good at prayer,” because I don’t think I am, especially the prayer-by-myself type of prayer. Yeah, I can do it, but…