The Millennial Pastor

FIRST READING: Ezekiel 37:1-14 In our exploration of places along the way, we began in Eden. Like Eden, the Valley of the Dry Bones is more a place of mythological existence. Our journey has taken us from Eden with Adam and Eve to Ur with Sarah and Abraham, to Meribah and Massah with Moses and the Israelites, to Bethlehem and the prophet Samuel seeking out the one who would be king of…

READING: 1 Samuel 16:1-13 We began our Lenten journey in Eden, a place of myth and memory that Adam and Eve left behind. We moved to Ur with Abram and Sarai, who were called to get up and go. Then to Massah and Meribah, where Moses provided the complaining Israelites with water from the rock.  Now we come to Bethlehem. The city of Joseph’s ancestor, King David. Bethlehem is a place familiar to…

Lenten Devotions Massah and Meribah READING: Exodus 17:1-7 Our Lenten Journey brings us today to Massah and Meribah, a stop in the wilderness. There the Israelites have wandered and found themselves wanting, hungry and thirsty.  This journey began in Eden. In the Garden of Eden, there was an abundance. Food and water enough for all – for Adam and Eve and all the creatures of God’s making to…

Lenten Devotions – Week 1 READING: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Our Lenten pilgrimage through the wilderness began last Wednesday in the valley of Ashes. There, we were reminded that we were dust and ash and to dust we shall return. But we were also reminded that the cross stamped on our foreheads that night was first placed there in baptism, as a sign of God’s claim on us – a brand marking us as…

This was a post shared with my congregation the day before our Leave-Taking service on June 22. A service of Leave-Taking is a hard thing to define. The name tries to make it obvious – someone or something is taking leave. But who is leaving, and what is staying behind? It is not entirely clear. The thing that we are doing is taking leave of our building at 7 Tudor Crescent. We – the…

This is a post that was initially shared with my congregation on June 14, in the days ahead of our Leave Taking Service: There is strangeness to this moment for us as the congregation of Sherwood Park Lutheran Church in Winnipeg.  We have been counting down the months, weeks and days until we say goodbye to our building. During these past few months and weeks, plans have been put into place to…

We are coming to the final days of Easter: nearly seven weeks of celebrating the Resurrection. We began with the disciples experiencing the death and resurrection of Christ—this apocalyptic moment, this instance of God breaking into our history⎯the moment that changed our trajectory. We lingered with the disciples as they met the Risen Christ in the upper room, on the road to Damascus, on the…

In the second half of the season of Easter, we have been hearing Gospel readings and readings from the book of Acts about the early church sorting out who they were and what this new community of Jesus’ followers was supposed to be about in the world.  It can be a strange narrative to track. Benefiting from the perspective of two thousand years of church history, we come at the story backwards.…

The season of Easter was understood by the Early Church as one long day of celebration. Seven weeks of focusing on the good news of resurrection.  The Gospel readings appointed for the season of Easter often tell the stories of resurrection appearances for the first three weeks. But in the second half of the season, the readings and focus of Easter turn toward what this new community of…

The Fourth Sunday in the season of Easter is the middle Sunday. It is usually called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because we hear a lot of shepherd-related readings on this Sunday. They serve as a means to turn us from the immediate stories of resurrection that we have been hearing for three Sundays to the next question that the church has to answer: What comes next? Often, Good Shepherd Sunday is…

This week, the disciples have gone fishing. It feels like an interesting choice following the events of Good Friday and Easter. Yet, even in their attempt to go back to what they know, to the lives they lived before Jesus came and called them from their fishing boats, Jesus comes strolling down the shoreline again. There, he cooks them a meal of fish for breakfast.  Following the meal, Jesus…

Doubtless, you will have heard me talk about Martin Luther’s concept of the Happy or Joyful Exchange at one time or another in the past few months.  The Happy Exchange is the metaphor that Luther uses to describe how our sins are forgiven. In the exchange, we give to Jesus our sins. But what does that mean? Do we heap them on him like some kind of scapegoat who is then sent away? Do we mark him…

Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday are behind us, yet Easter morning is still to come. This in-between moment is one where two realities exist at the same time. Christ has died and Christ has risen, but neither is fully here.  While uncomfortable, this is the place where we live as the Church, as people of faith. We are always in-between realities. We are always becoming and on our…

The first Palm Sunday I can remember I was six or seven. A Sunday school teacher shoved a palm branch into my hands and told me to be happy; we were going to welcome Jesus. The Sunday school and adult choir paraded into the sanctuary singing a happy song as the congregation watched. I remember not being sure what was going on. But I knew that happy people were laying down their coats and palm…

Our Lenten journey hasn’t been easy this year. The themes we have explored have ranged from the clash of kingdoms to human unwillingness to receive in the incarnate Christ, to our anxieties over the judgement of our sinfulness, to the loving father whose sons were lost in worlds of their senses of entitlement.  This fifth Sunday presents us with the story of Mary, the sister to Martha and…

It is only the third week of Lent, and already, the themes of the season have been remarkably difficult. The temptation of Jesus was a glimpse into the clashing of kingdoms in the first week. Jesus’ lamenting for Jerusalem and wanting to gather in God’s chosen people was really about the unwillingness of human beings and the destruction of Jerusalem temple.In this third week, the Lenten theme is…

Our Lenten wilderness continues to stretch out before us. With questions of when we might find stable footing in all the uncertainty around us, we were reminded last week that God’s claim on us in Baptism is something that we can cling to.  This week we hear how Jesus goes from his own wilderness to the towns and villages of Galilee, where the Pharisees confront him about the treachery of Herod.…