a palm / passion sunday prayer of approach & confession

I offered this Prayer of Approach and Confession for Palm/Passion Sunday when I served as Worship Elder during Holy Week at University Congregation.

You come to us in humility.
You enter the gates of the city on a donkey.
You pass through the doors of our hearts as long-awaited guest.
               

We cry: “Hosanna … Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Blessed are You, for You know the truth about the trouble
          in our world,
          in our city,
          in our soul.

can these bones live

Here are some sermon notes for a sermon I am not preaching this Sunday ... if I was the sermon might go something like this. Ezekiel 37:1-14 is as fresh and new as ever ...

- Ezekiel is set down in a valley full of bones. It is a vision he recognizes. He and his contemporaries have been marched to Babylon and witnessed fields filled with the bones of dead soldiers. They are suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. “There were very many … and they were very dry”. This is a scene of carnage, without hope. The smell of death is everywhere. The LORD asks Ezekiel “Can these bones live?” The obvious answer is ‘No way’. But Ezekiel knows he is dealing with the LORD who has liberated an enslaved people from super-power Egypt. He turns it back to his questioner: “O LORD God, you know.”

to be a priest is to be a bridge

Once again this year University Hill Congregation is hosting forty seven texts on its Lenten pilgrimage to Easter. You can find the daily reflections here. I was assigned Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9. Here is my witness:

To be a priest is to be a bridge. Remember the priests of Israel standing in the Jordan river, holding back the waters, so that all the people (elders and infants, abled and dis-abled) can safely make the crossing to the other side. Remember that the Pope is known as “pontiff” from the Latin “pont” or bridge.

a prayer at my mother's funeral

Yesterday we held a Memorial Service for my mother, Anne Searcy. Her obituary is here.  The text for the service was Matthew 5:1-16 (The Beatitudes). My role in the service was to lead the Prayer of Thanksgiving and Supplication. Here is that prayer ...

pomalidomide (year three)

It has been ten months since my last myeloma update. That, in itself, is good news. This January I began my third year on pomalidomide. I continue to take this pill in conjunction with dexamethsone and cyclophosphamide and the results continue to be excellent. My monthly blood tests reveal that my free light chains range between 35 and 50. It means they are very low - nearly normal. This is good news for both my myeloma and amyloidosis. I am so very fortunate to have been diagnosed at an early stage before suffering any symptoms from my diseases and to be receiving such effective treatments. I could almost forget that I am living with an (at this point) incurable blood cancer ...

little well of sermons

I just re-discovered an online collection of sermons from University Hill Congregation that includes many that I preached between 1995 and 2008. That was a period in which I was changing the way I approached preaching in response to the newly missional location of the church. Big thanks to Jason Carlson who created and maintains the searchable site at Littlewell

cruciformity - life as a gospel rabbi "the video"

In April I had the privilege of speaking at the annual gathering of "Cruxifusion". At the time I posted some notes about that presentation here - "Life as a Gospel Rabbi (1)" and "Life as a Gospel Rabbi (2)". Recently a video of that presentation has been posted on the Cruxifusion website. In many ways this sums up what I learned in my life as a pastor. You can view the video at "Cruciformity - Life as a Gospel Rabbi".