Santa Monica Nazarene Church

In this sermon we continue our series allowing some of the voices from the Philokalia to help us hear the gospel. Today we look at some verses from the Psalms and Luke's gospel alongside of some words from Isaac the Syrian. I play with the idea that the gospel calls us not so much to hang on but to let go, with the help of Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, Viktor Frankl, and a song by a band called Swi...

In this sermon we continue our series allowing some of the voices from the Philokalia to help us hear the gospel. Today we look at some verses from John's gospel alongside of some words from Mark the Monk. We talk about what it means to carry Jesus' death in us so that his life may be on display, that faith is verb, that belief is not enough, that seeing Jesus means seeing him as the crucified one...

In this sermon we start a new series allowing some of the voices from the Philokalia to help us hear the gospel. Today we look at some verses from the book of Daniel alongside of some words from John Cassian. We talk about the kingdom of God (see Mary's song in Luke 1, Jesus' Luke 4 sermon, and everything we do to Jesus in Matthew 25), a book by Maurice Sendak called Where the Wild Things Are , Ne...

In this sermon we start a new series allowing some of the voices from the Philokalia to help us hear the gospel. Today we look at some verses from Luke's gospel alongside of some words from Evagrius Ponticus. We talk about what it means to pray, to pray without distraction, what distractions such as violence, prejudice, bigotry, racism, classism, sexism, xenophobia, and nationalism. God is trying...

In this sermon we start a new series allowing some of the voices from the Philokalia to help us hear the gospel. Today we look at some verses from Matthew's gospel alongside of some words from Isaiah the Solitary. We focus on what it means to guard what we let in and what we let out. We talk about the connection between the inner and outer life, the time I got agitated by a large work vehicle outs...

In this sermon we conclude our series on resilience and hope. We begin by reviewing what we have talked about so far. We then talk about images of hope through the Shajarat-al-Hayat (Tree of Life inBahrain), walking palm trees, and a flower growing out of the concrete. Next we consider Peter's words about what it means to have a living hope as we suffer various trials. From there the sermon shifts...

In this sermon we talk hope in relation to our culture of fear.

In this sermon we consider what hope and judgment have to do with each other. We look at the line from the Apostle's Creed, that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. With a little help from C.S. Lewis's book The Great Divorce , we reflect on God's love as something that can feel like heaven or hell, depending on how you receive it.

In this sermon we talk a little more about hope and pain, particularly how our cries against pain and suffering is an act of rebellion that God welcomes. It is to say that these are not things God desires. We look at Psalm 130, Job, Paul and Ivan Karamazov in order to understand what it means to find comfort in Christ and to be a comfort for others.  

In this sermon we look at hope in relation to the problem of evil and suffering. This is one of the biggest hangups when it comes to belief in God. We talk about how a proper understanding of God in relation to creation helps us understand why evil and suffering can exist in the first place and why we can still call God good.  

In this sermon we talk about hope by asking the question of which direction you are looking. Are you looking backwards in hopes of returning to a lost perfection or forwards in hopes of becoming what God made us for? We talk about hope in action (stories about Eusebius, Saint Francis, and Maximillian Kolbe) as we await the coming day of the Lord.

In this sermon we continue our series on resilience and hope by looking at how it is our hope that is resilience even if we ourselves are not. We talk about what people say about resilience, what difference the gospel makes as to how we understand it, how hope and resilience mean we do not have to get out of life alive, and The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity as exemplary of resilience and...

Hi, Church -     So, there's this thing that happens to churches these days where we are tempted to respond to decline by chasing relevance. These words, of course, need some definition.   Decline, we might say, is what we are tempted to feel when congregations shrink in size, when finances get tight, and when buildings decay. It's a sense of stagnation.   Relevance, we might say, is what we are t...

In this sermon we talk about resilience, hope, abiding as a long obedience, the formation of Yosemite, Michelangelo's David, how a Steinway Piano is made, and what happens when we stay put with God in the life of prayer.

In this sermon we continue the series we started last week on hope and resilience. Here we talk about bad ways of thinking about hope, what the first century Greco-Roman world thought about hope, what pie and ice cream has to do withg the hope reserved for us in heaven, and of course The Shawshank Redemption .

In this sermon we end our series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

Good morning, Santa Monica Nazarene -   I'm here with another audio recording of my weekly Call to Worship email. And today I wanted to share a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien's second book in The Lord of the Rings series (the book's called The Two Towers , in case you were wondering). But it's a quote I've been thinking about ever since I read it that I think might help us prepare our hearts for worshi...

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more peopl...

In this sermon on Resurrection Sunday we continue our series looking at the seven things Jesus says from the cross before he dies. We look at the seventh and last thing where in death he entrusts himself to the Father. We consider this through the lens of breath in the Scripture, particulalry in light of Jesus giving is spirit to them after the resurrection in John 20.