Taylor Mertins

Matthew 18.21-35 The title for this sermon is "Preaching What We Practice." Which is, of course, a flipping of practicing what we preach. For, it seems as though we imagine that’s the purpose of the church - We exist to tell people like you how you’re supposed to be living. If that’s true, if that’s the point of the church, then I should end this sermon by telling you to go out into the world and...

Luke 14.15-23 There is a strange and beautiful value in looking out at the beloved community we call church and seeing the ragtag reality behind it. In the same way, there is something downright wonderful about seeing a bunch of sinners, and observing the communion of saints within and behind them. We have a word for this. A strange word. A word not often said aloud but absolutely definitive when...

The Holy Spirit is always full of surprises, full of creativity, full of force. The Spirit goes wherever she wants, unsought, maybe even unwanted, intent on making all things new. You see, that’s what Pentecost is all about. A whole new creation. Just as the Spirit hovered over the waters in Genesis bringing forth order out of chaos, the Spirit blows through the upper room upending their orderline...

Philippians 2.5-11 Stanley Hauerwas is known for his anger. He is angry, like Jesus in the Temple, because he finds himself surrounded by Christians for whom Jesus no longer makes any difference, Christians who move and live in the world regardless of whether Jesus rose from the dead. He, that is Hauerwas, notes that his anger stems mostly from the great number of pastors who fail to challenge the...

Genesis 1.1-5 I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. There’s a reason we affirm the Creed week after week. It tells the story that gives meaning to all of our stories. For, we worship the Almighty God for whom nothing is impossible. The maker of all things, even us. And chaos, even the empty void, is no match for the One in whom we live and move and have our being. As the...

Exodus 17.1-7 We are saved not by our excellent decision making, nor by our decisive dogmatics, nor by our presumptive power. We are saved not by our degrees, or our progeny, or our bank accounts. Only God can do what we cannot. The Good News of the Gospel is that when our abilities fail us, our knowledge, minds, patience, health, career, family, sanity, there is always a source of water in the dr...

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s control. The story of the manna is also the story of learning how to be out of control. Which might be why faith is such a challenge. For, from the time we are little children, we are fed a different story - that we have to be in control, that we have to be masters of our own destiny, that we have to make a way where there is no way. In short, we think we ha...

Exodus 14.19-31 The salvation made possible by the Good News means being saved from something, and for something. Just as the Israelites were saved from Egypt, they were also saved for a new kind of radical living witness to the power of God. Just like we have been saved from the powers of sin and death, we have also been saved for a new kind of living that calls into question the powers and princ...

The great and wondrous news from scripture is that death is not the end. Which means that whatever mess we make in this life, it is no match for the only One who can do anything about it. Just as God delivered God’s people out of their bondage to slavery in Egypt through the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, so too God delivers us out of our bondage to death through the sacrifice of Jesus, our Passo...

God calls all of us like God calls Moses. God has plans and desires and hopes for all of us, all of you. Some big, some small, but vital all. And here’s the Good News - you don’t have to be carrying saints to be part of God’s mission in the world. You don’t have to have all the right scriptures memorized, or pray the perfect prayers, or read all the important theology. If you need anything, it’s j...

Romans 12.1-8 "Paul is addressing Roman Christians as people who have been released from the captivity to Sin by God’s action in Jesus Christ. Having been set free from this oppression, Paul empowers them to act, to respond, to do something. Present yourselves to God. And it all hinges on the therefore. Any time we encounter a therefore, whether in scripture or in life, we need to know what the th...

Romans 11.1-2a, 29-32 Paul, as the church moves and grows, is rattling the cages of our prisons to disobedience with the Gospel. It’s as if he is saying that God makes sure we all experience what it means to be on the outside, so that God can be the one to open the door and welcome us back in. God, like the prodigal father, comes to find us in the streets of life with mercy before we even have a c...

I’m not sure why Jesus left it up to preachers to share this news. For preachers, one and all, are a bunch of nobodies, sinners with no hope of their own, scoundrels most of the time. But then again, preaching isn’t something that preachers do, it’s what God does through us. The word of faith that draws near to you even right now in this very moment is not because of anything you have done, and ce...

The church has always been a place for truth, but that doesn’t mean we’ve always liked it. When push comes to shove we’d rather consider and contemplate our successes than our sins. And yet, the knowledge and confession that each of us is a sinner in need of God’s mercy can be weirdly and wonderfully comforting. For, it gives us the freedom from pretending to be people we aren’t. The writer Anne L...

Baptism, like communion, is not something to be mastered, comprehended, or understood. We can’t wrap our heads around it any more than we can figure out why certain songs give us goosebumps, or why sometimes our laughter leads to tears. Some things, in fact some of the very best things, are mysterious. Maybe that’s what makes them great. The challenge comes with resting in the mystery while the wo...

Paul is begging us to see that the key to our salvation isn’t positive thinking or more morality or healthier habits. The key to our salvation is Jesus! Our salvation is God’s grace made manifest in the One who frees us from the delusion that we have to save ourselves. The church isn’t in the religion business. Instead, the church is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. All of this, the scriptures,...

Over the years, Paul’s writings and teachings have been often summarized as, “Become what you already are!” And for good reason. In baptism we are deadened with Christ that we might rise with Christ. In communion we put God inside of us that we might be more like Christ and less like ourselves. We are already defined by the grace of God, and nothing can ever take that away. Nothing.

Paul says the Law brings wrath, but the Gospel sets free. Doing all of the right things, and knowing the right people, and making the right choices, sounds wonderful in principal, but turns out to be impossible. We can’t make ourselves righteous, we can’t rectify ourselves, we can’t redeem ourselves. Thankfully, God is completely caught up in the work of doing things we could never do ourselves by...

Pentecost is the promise that we don't have to build a tower into the sky to get close to God; God has come to us. The arrival of the Holy Spirit means we are no longer defined by our mistakes, but only by God’s grace.

The movement that Jesus begins, the adventure of faith we call church, is constituted by people who know we have all the time in the world, made possible by God’s patience, to challenge the world’s impatience, by cross and resurrection. The gift of the Ascension, of Christ’s ruling at the right hand of God, is the reminder that we can wait and pray. It’s a gift!

Paul writes to the church in Rome that faith comes from what is heard and what it heard comes through the preaching of Christ. The story has the power to change everything. It changed everything for Paul! The man who agreed to the stoning of Stephen now stands surrounded by stones that invoke his proclamation. He is compelled to preach in order to set the people free and bring about the end of rel...

The story of the Gospel is a promise that no one is outside the realm of God’s mercy, that the worst thing is never the last thing, that grace is greater than our sin.

Living for other people is a completely radical and bonkers idea. Getting rid of possessions so that others can benefit is a wild and far cry from how things are supposed to work. Holding all things in common isn’t normal. It’s therefore not surprising that the disciples in Acts constantly find themselves in trouble - the kind of conflicts that John Lewis called good trouble. It’s good trouble bec...

The Gospel has a way of digging itself in, commingling with all of our thoughts about how things are supposed to be. The Good News declares that God has changed everything, we only need to act accordingly. In short - the people are moved to move upon hearing the story. That’s what the word “repent” means after all, it’s a turning or a returning to something. And that something has a name: Jesus.

It’s a confounding image to take in - these ragtag disciples tripping over themselves in the streets, drunk on the Spirit. It must’ve garnered quite the crowd. However, none of the twelve, Peter included, had much to show for themselves. No exceptional credentials, no fabulous degrees from Jerusalem University, no financial capital to invest. They have nothing, really. Nothing except a message. An...