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The Ten Commandments 2025

  Friends, it’s another week of Stump the Preacher 2025, sermons requested by you and then researched and delivered by me. This week’s request came from our friend Terri, and she wanted to hear more about the ten commandments! Specifically, Terri had these questions: were these rules written just for the Hebrews, in their context, or are they general life advice? The answer to that question is “yes”, and you’re invited to stay to hear the rest! Terri was also curious about why the ten commandments are in the Bible in multiple different places, with different wording? Great questions, Terri! This is what Jesus meant when he advised us to love God with our whole MIND. Oh boy, the ten commandments. The very first time I ever preached on those was back in 2012, in my first pastoral appointment, back when I was a wee baby minister. Back then, I commended the flock I was preaching to on their incredible bravery in listening to a sermon on this topic. 13 years later, y’all are no less bra...
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Translating the Bible

  Translating the Bible  Friends, after taking 2 weeks off, we’re back to Stump the Preacher 2025, sermons requested by you and then delivered by me. This week’s request comes to us from our friend Terri! She wanted to hear more about what went into translating the Bible. Good question, Terri! The first thing y’all need to understand about translating anything is that translating means loss. Loss of nuance, loss of turns of phrase, loss of voice, and loss of original intent. When you translate anything, even if it’s as simple as “Frere Jacques” from French to English, you have to make decisions on behalf of the original speaker, who often isn’t standing next to you to approve your choice. It’s hard work, and we owe the fact that the Bible is available in such a wealth of languages to the hard work, and tough decisions, made by many, many translators. It’s estimated that the Bible is available in 3,700 different languages. As I hope y’all know, the Bible did not originate from ...
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The Good Samaritan

  One of the many reasons why this parable has remained so dear to my heart is because of this fascinating impact it’s had on our culture. It’s because of this story that the phrase “good samaritan” is part of our popular lexicon. This phrase is heavily used across local news and social media, and it has a pretty consistent definition: “a stranger who steps in to help when they see someone in public in danger.” But…our definition of what it means to “help” can be a bit variable. I did a search of the internet for “good samaritan” stories from news headlines this week, and here’s just a sampling of what I found: “Good samaritan pulls driver from a burning car” “Good samaritan pulls two people from a burning boat” “Good samaritan performs CPR on a shooting victim” “Good samaritan spends two days reuniting a woman with her lost purse” “Good samaritans find a lost wedding ring and return it to its owner, who hadn’t taken it off once in over 50 years” And the one that really got my atte...
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Mary and Martha

  Friends, for the next two weeks we’re taking a short break from Stump the Preacher, because there are two stories from Luke that come up in the lectionary just once every three years, that are so precious to me that when they come up I really want to lift them up for you. This is one of them. Mary and Martha. I’m a Martha. No question about it. And I’m not the type of person to literally believe we all fall into types, especially binary ones, and I believe that humans have the ability to grow and change from day to day, so categorizing us is hardly ever helpful, except for when this story comes up in the lectionary. Because I’m a Martha. I had a holy experience with this short text about a decade ago, when I was working with a spiritual director. If you’ve never done spiritual direction before, or known someone who did–imagine you and God were in couples therapy together. Actually, since Christians believe in a triune God, maybe it’s a group therapy situation. That’s spiritual di...
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Why do some people struggle so much more with their health than others?

  Luke 5: 17-26  Jesus Heals a Paralytic 17 One day while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem were sitting nearby, and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. [ a ] 18 Just then some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, [ b ] 19 but, finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle of the crowd [ c ] in front of Jesus. 20 When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, [ d ] your sins are forgiven you.” 21 Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up ...
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Pastor Peter

  After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, Peter got a big promotion amongst the disciples, and started a new job, as “the rock upon which Jesus would build the Church.” No pressure, though. The book of Acts, that we’re getting these verses from, was written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. We know that because both books begin with a special thanks to some dude named “Theophilus”. We have no historical records of anyone ever being named Theophilus, and no other books, save for these two, dedicated to Theophilus. Theophilus was either a wealthy patron of Luke with a crazy unique name, OR, we can take a look at what “Theophilus” means in Greek–lover of God–and go with the alternate theory, that Theophilus wasn’t one specific person, but rather the author’s way of giving a nod to all people who will read these stories as he intended, with love for God. Either way, dedicating your book to Theophilus is right up there with “call me Ishmael” as an easily identifi...
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