On New Year's Day I had the opportunity to preach at Central Peninsula Church's North Campus. It was a part of their series answering the question "What child is this?" exploring the Christmas story through Jesus' embodiment and fulfillment of Old Testament texts.
Read MoreJesus' Third Way - An Ethic of Nonviolence & Love of Enemy
Maybe one of the most neglected/ignored (and certainly most difficult) teachings of Jesus is his teaching of nonviolence and love of enemy. Jesus' teaching found in Matthew 5:38-48 was thee central ethic that inspired both Martin Luther King's Civil Rights Movement and Ghandi's Indian Independence Movement. In a collection of Dr. King's sermons entitled, Strength to Love, King says this about Jesus teaching of love of enemy...
Read MoreThe Initiating Love of God
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The story of Exodus is about far more than the epic narrative it already is, it is about a paradigm of the way God works throughout the scriptures, and ultimately in the world. The story is about a God who hears the cries of those enslaved and acts on their behalf. It is a story about a God who rescues his people, without concern for their response. We see this story in Jesus' teaching in Luke 15. Here Jesus teaches 3 separate parables about, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost sons. Each story is about something lost, that will remain lost unless someone goes and finds it. The three stories culminate in the picture of father running toward his estranged son, embracing him, kissing him, and throwing him a party.
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The Slow Work of the Heart - Latest Sermon
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A few weeks back I was able to share a message I wrote that explores the process by which transformation takes place. For followers of Jesus, we often find ourselves struggling to embody the same ethic, grace, and compassion that Jesus embodied. We struggle, we work, we battle ourselves all in an effort toward Christlikeness. However, in Matthew 11:28 Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." How does one find rest in the pursuit of Christlikeness? Dallas Willard says it best...
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Embracing Mystery - Latest Sermon
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A few weeks back I was able to bring in the new year with Sebastopol Christian Church. It was an opportunity to explore the tension between our knowledge of God and the unending mystery of the divine. My main premise was that we can know God truly, but we cannot know God fully.
Author Anne Lamott said, "The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns."
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