ELCG Podcast

Grace says: Because you are my children, I love you, pure and simple. Full stop. It’s so simple, so strange, and it’s finally our home.

There's a profoundly hopeful message in Jesus's parable: life is unpredictable, and there’s no telling when anyone’s time will come, but you have today. You have today to live, so live for what’s truly important.

'Listen,' we can say to the voices trying to knock us off the path of love: 'I’ve got work to do, and I must be on my way.'

We’re invited to make ourselves at home in God’s love, to make that our dwelling place, our refuge. When we do, no evil can take us away.

Not all followers of Jesus are confronted with earthshaking, pyrotechnic visions. But we are all faced with glimpses of a different world, one that’s full of grace and truth and possibility.

Embedded in Jesus’s words “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” is a breathtaking reality—the reality that we are part of God’s family.

It’s never too late to sink your roots into some better soil. If you’ve been putting your trust where it doesn’t belong, then there’s no time like the present to trust in the grace and love of God instead.

Simon had Jesus standing there in the boat with him, telling him to let down the nets for another catch; we have the community, reminding us of what matters, asking us to keep showing up, calling us to offer our gifts.

A sermon on Luke 4:21-30 and 1 Corinthians 13, preached by Rev. Kristín Tómasdóttir on 30 January.

A sermon by Rev. Dr. Wesley Ariarajah on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, preached on 23 January.

That’s finally what the gifts of the Spirit are for, Paul says. They’re not for keeping to yourself, and they’re not for boasting, and they’re certainly not for creating hierarchies and divisions. They’re for offering to others; they’re for building up the community.

Jesus doesn’t just say it: he allows himself to be immersed in the peoples’ hopes and struggles.

A sermon by Rev. Sarah Stephens, given on the Sunday of the Epiphany, 2 January 2022.

A sermon on Colossians 3:12-17, preached by Rev. Dr. Elaine Neuenfeldt on the First Sunday of Christmas, 26 December 2021.

Singing and Christmas go together well—there’s no doubt about that. But “sing a new song”? This tends to be a time when we return to old favorites.

A pandemic can do lots of things: it can cancel flights and disrupt gatherings and dampen spirits and leave us bereft and grieving in many ways. But here’s what a pandemic cannot do: it cannot drown out the song of the angels.

It’s a new world Mary sees, and here’s how it’s coming about: not with swords, but with women embracing in a no-name town, with hearts made joyful, with a song sung in faith.

A sermon by Rev. Dr. Chad Rimmer about turtles and prophets for the third week of Advent. What is distinctive about a prophet is not just what they say, but what they see.

It's no accident that John the Baptist is preaching and baptizing out in the desert, because in the Bible, the road to new life always passes through the wilderness.

We’re meant to be people who hope—not just in the times when hope comes easily, but also in times when it’s difficult, in times when fearful and foreboding signs are all around.

That’s where our hope begins: not with our circumstances or our achievements or our merits, but with the God of today, yesterday, and tomorrow, the One who comes to us.

"No," we’re meant to say, when fear and hopelessness seem final and everlasting. "God has promised how the story ends, and this is not it. It doesn’t end with one great mess; it ends with life."

Maybe that’s how God’s commanding, God’s calling, works much of the time. Without a booming voice from the heavens—just a need in front of us, just the voice of another person. A sermon on 1 Kings 17:8-16.

In this whole complex tradition, with all its stories and practices and ideas, what is most important for you? What is at the center? A sermon for confirmation Sunday, with contributions from the confirmands.

A sermon by Rev. Dr. Elaine Neuenfeldt on Mark 10:46-52, preached on 24 October 2021.