Knox Church Sermons

 Good morning.  My son’s football team had a campout last night, which I signed up to attend thinking it was on a Friday…we spent last night a tent on a football field—so today felt like a good time to talk about the need for rest!           I am going to talk about rest this morning—about […]

For the past several weeks, without saying much about it, I’ve been preaching on the lectionary, the recommended scriptures that guide preachers and churches through the Bible every 3 years.  At this time of year, most of the readings speak to the situation the disciples face in the days after Easter:  How will they follow […]

Today we begin with words I admit may sound ominous, or at least confusing. Isaiah 53 reads, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,     yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,     and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,     so he […]

Preachers all have some aspects of the Bible that we’re drawn to more than others.  I tend to preach on stories and poetry, and it’s less common for me to pick the New Testament letters.  But I am committed to “eating my vegetables” so to speak, reading all of the Bible and not always choosing […]

There are a lot of really important things about church ministry, but the story we’re reading this morning—commonly known as the Walk to Emmaus—this story has some personal history for me that always reminds me not to take myself too seriously.  I remember this story well from seminary; I remember students and professors who treated […]

This morning’s scripture lesson includes a phrase that has been the source of Christian antisemitism in many places throughout history, and deserves comment when it is read:  The story says that on Easter night, the disciples have locked the doors “for fear of the Jews.”  One of the things we always must be careful about […]

Let us pray:  Good and gracious God:  on this miraculous morning, when we are reminded most clearly of your promise that life will always triumph over death, may we not forget those for whom death is such a present threat this day:  people of Palestine and Israel, Ukraine and Haiti, immigrants and refugees seeking a […]

This morning we’re going to talk about what are traditionally known as The Beatitudes, this list of blessings Jesus speaks as the first words of his most well-known sermon; specifically, we’re going to talk about how these blessings contrast to most other messages we hear in life, other voices that speak loudly inside of us […]

This past week I was eating lunch at a restaurant, and I found myself in conversation with the owner, who expressed that she’d seen a lot of success over the years, but lately the job just seemed harder than ever.  Staff, customers, economic realities; whatever it was, something about this season in life had just […]

I wonder if you’ve noticed that the people closest to you are often the least likely to want your advice?  Your kids follow their coaches’ instructions much more quickly than yours; your young adult son or daughter doesn’t want your advice about who to date; aging parents would rather not have your guidance on where […]

In these early weeks of 2024 we’ve been talking about the theme “Becoming Jesus”—a sermon series on stories from early in Jesus’ life and ministry.  Today we’re shifting from the focus we’ve had on Jesus’ own preparations toward what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Jesus’ early ministry; we’ll be talking about […]

David Brooks’ book The Road to Character is full of real stories about people who spent significant time and effort in the forming of a significant life.  Dorothy Day, Samuel Johnson, George Marshall, Bayard Rustin.  Some of the names might mean more to you than others, but the stories have a common thread—the road to character is […]

Good Morning.  It’s mid-January; snow is on the ground today, and it’s very cold.  This week, The New York Times ran a little culture piece about January:  it was about how, yes, there are many subjects that have become contentious to argue about; but it’s still pretty safe to have a spirited debate about whether you love […]

Each year in the weeks between Christmas and the start of Lent, recommended Scriptures for worship focus on the early stories about Jesus.  In these first chapters of the Gospels, we read about what Jesus did first:  his process of “becoming” the one we ultimately know through the stories of the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, his […]

I got the idea for this sermon from something I read called “Keeping Herod in Christmas,” (in McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking) which is a catchy title because it begs the question, “who would want to do that?”  Who would want to keep Herod in Christmas?  Herod is the bad guy in the story.  […]

When I was 11 years-old, I had in my bedroom a staple of 1980s technology.  Perhaps you are familiar with it.  It was called a clock-radio.  It was amazing, told me the time, included a snooze button, and I could turn the dial on the radio so that 99 ½ FM WZPL would wake me […]