Strong and Tender
Rev. Dr. Mark Allen Doty March 13, 2022 STRONG AND TENDER LUKE 13:31-35 Some years ago I ran across something called “brain candy jokes.” They all begin with the words, “you know it will be a bad day when…” The relatively short list of brain candy jokes has indeed…
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Reliance: Sayings
One does not live by bread alone, but by every word, or closer to the Greek, every saying, rhemati, every saying that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus says food isn’t enough to live on; we need sayings. Good sayings. God’s sayings. What sayings of God do you live…
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Stay
Today, we turn to the Transfiguration of Jesus. Each synoptic gospel contains an account of this moment on the mountain where Jesus is transformed. Transfiguration, to be transfigured is to be changed completely into a more beautiful or more spiritual state. This is just one of the glorious impossibles in…
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At the door of God
February 27, 2022 Transfiguration At the door of God Luke 9:28-36 By this 9th chapter in Luke’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry, Jesus is busy. In the two chapters preceding today’s reading, these are some of the subject lines: Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant; Raises the Widow’s Son;…
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Beyond the Golden Rule
There are so many things to talk about in the passage Barbara just read with us. Beautiful things, intriguing things, and difficult things. Love your enemies, turn the other cheek. Give to everyone who begs from you. Too many things to consider in one day. For the moment, let’s focus…
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Made for goodness
Close your eyes and draw to mind a favorite tree. Perhaps it’s a towering cypress by a Hill Country swimming hole or a century oak whose gnarled branches shade your home. Or perhaps it’s a maple that blazed like fire in the fall or a dogwood that bloomed at the…
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The Leap to Faith
Download Simon, James, and John know the fishing trade like the back of their hands: the boats, the nets, the fish, the marketing . . . This is their livelihood, their world! It’s familiar, predictable, reliable, relatable, sacrosanct. The water is their terra…
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Love’s indifference
Teach us to care and not to care. How can that even be a prayer? The poet who wrote those words, T.S. Eliot, is usually pretty sensible. But he seems to have given us here a petition that cancels itself out: to care, and not to care. If this were…
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A sign of beginning
Download January 16, 2022 John 2:1-11 A sign of beginning We teach our children what we ourselves were taught: Business before pleasure. Finish your homework, then you can play. Eat your vegetables, then you can have dessert. Do your chores, then the…
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