Paul in Acts 20 quotes Jesus as saying, “It is better to give than to receive.” We often hear this quote around Christmas time when we’re buying presents for loved ones (and perhaps for less than loved ones as well). But this isn’t just a Christmas quote, it’s a way of life. We might have…

Lutherans are used to confession. We do it every Sunday around here. We start our services off acknowledging, in some form, that we are “poor miserable sinners” and that “we have failed in our love towards God and as a result failed to love our neighbor,” and that “we are in bondage to sin and…

I follow the account of a Rabbi and his wife on TikTok. Their names are Moses and Zipporah and they discuss the intricacies of living life as an observant orthodox Jewish family. ( https://www.tiktok.com/@mosesandzippora ) They walk through rules that they have for eating kosher and observing Sabbath and all sorts of fun stuff. As…

There are only a few things that seem to span every generation of people at University Lutheran. One of those is a (sometimes painful) memory of being chosen on a playground by a captain for a team. Whether it was kickball or soccer or basketball or something else, all of us probably have this memory…

Give to the poor. It’s one of those “easier said than done,” things, unfortunately. Jesus tells the rich young ruler to do so in Mark 10. He also tells His disciples that they will “always have the poor,” after He is anointed before His betrayal. Put those two things together, it is a command that…

Happy Seven Eleven day! If tradition holds true, you can make your way to a 7 Eleven store today and get a free slurpee. You will have to drive to Midway, FL however. Tallahassee doesn’t have a 7 Eleven. The store was named 7 Eleven back in 1946 to promote the (at the time) outlandish…

I remember either hearing or reading that the Anglican scholar and churchman Bishop N.T. Wright said that Christians should be serving mimosas at church throughout the Easter season. I don’t even really like mimosas, but the idea stuck with me because when you say “mimosa” one of the things that gets conjured up is a…

In Matthew 23, Jesus calls the Pharisees out for a strange practice – they tithe their household spices, but they “neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice, and mercy, and faithfulness.” What Jesus is doing here is not denouncing the practice of tithing, but rather pointing out that the Pharisees have gotten to a…

I learned to play chess when I was young. I actually taught myself from a Bobby Fischer book, but because I taught myself, I never really got the actual playing concepts of the game. I knew how the pieces were supposed to move, but knowing how the pieces are supposed to move is an important…