Sermons 2025 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Grief & Hope

Luke 24:1-12 It is almost always the same. When I attend a funeral as a mourner or lead a funeral as a pastor, I hear all the things people say about the one who has died. They tell stories about how this person changed their lives. They speak about the qualities of this person with emotion – wonder, pride. There is always some humor mixed in with it all, because how can there not be when you are speaking about love? I love listening to the stories, whether it is someone I knew well or very little, at some point I find myself feeling a kind of holy amazement and inspiration. I walk away from there thinking, “What a wonderful life! And then I think, “Goodness gracious – what the heck have I been doing with one precious wonderful life?” When someone dies, there is always grief. But there is […]

Shouting & Silence

Luke 19:29-40 For over five weeks we have been traveling with Jesus toward Jerusalem. Now we are, finally, almost there. We can feel the excitement of this glorious day, there is momentum! But they pause, unexpectedly, near Bethany and Bethphage. There are a few final details to take care of. Jesus turns to two of his disciples: “Go ahead into the village. You will find a colt tied up. Untie it and bring it here.” And here we might wonder a few things, including: Is this really okay? That they should just go in and take a colt that belongs to someone else? Might someone object to this? Yes, actually, Jesus anticipates this, for he also tells them, “If anyone asks you what you are doing just tell them this: ‘the Lord needs it.’” So they went in and they found the colt. They untied it and, sure enough, someone […]

Righteousness & Mercy

Luke 19:1-10 As we continue through the Gospel of Luke, the story of Zacchaeus gives us another opportunity to see how Jesus interacts with those individuals who are lumped into the large category of “sinners.” Individuals who get a surprising amount of facetime with Jesus. Again and again, we are told of Jesus sitting at table with sinners and tax collectors, teaching them, and even calling them to be his disciples. While we are never told exactly who these sinners are, we do know something about the tax collectors. These men worked for the occupying government. Rome hired Jews who were willing to do this job, as hated as it was by the people. The system was set up for money to flow upward. The local tax collector would demand payments that would allow them to cover their own expenses, and it seems as though it was up to them […]

Lent 1: Stranger & Neighbor

Luke 10:25-37 A week ago I attended a Presbytery retreat with several other members of this congregation. It was called Fearless Dialogues; with a title like that, we all knew we were about to be nudged into our discomfort zone. And we were. We walked into a room with chairs set up in circles. Unbeknownst to us, we had each selected a sign that would indicate what group we would be sitting with, so when I walked in I sat with a group of others whom I had never met before. This is not the worst thing that could happen. I have been to plenty of events where I know nobody and engage with strangers – I know how to do this. But then we were asked to do something that was a bit different from anything I had ever done before. Pair up with one other person in your […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 6: More than Enough

Luke 6:27-38 Here’s a test: You’re shopping online, scrolling through all the options and possibilities, thinking about what you want. You let your curser rest on one particular item, then a message pops on screen saying, “Going fast!” or “Only 2 of these left!” How do you react to that? If you are like me, your immediate response is a slight feeling of alarm. The thought enters your mind, “If I want this I had better act fast or I will lose the chance. Someone else will get it.” This happens, even if I am intellectually aware that this is a technological trick. That it’s probably not even true. That, honestly, my world will be none the worse even if I do miss out on purchasing this item. Yet, it plants this seed in my head – I might miss out. Someone else will get it. I will miss out. […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 4: Yearning for Meaning

Luke 5:1-11 Every living human being somehow needs to find meaning in their lives, it’s what holds us together. Why get up in the morning if there is no meaning in it? Perhaps you have experienced days of depression, when meaning was absent, and any sense of purpose was lost. Perhaps you know how that feels. Meaning is essential to our well-being. For the fishermen, Simon Peter, James and John, it is possible that the primary meaning in their lives was providing a living for themselves and their families. Maybe they loved their work. Hopefully they took pride in it – it was hard. Sometimes you worked all night and came up empty. They weren’t wealthy men. As Jews in an occupied land, they were enduring the hardships of the Roman rule, which taxed them heavily and took much of the product of their labors to be sent elsewhere. There […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 2: Knowing Our Purpose

Luke 4:14-21 In these days, a news item can get around at lightning speed, if people think it’s worth talking about. But even in the days of Jesus, news was spread at a pretty good pace by word of mouth. Today we sit at our computers or with our thumbs on our phone screens, but back then people got out into the marketplace and they talked. They looked for news of what was happening in the world that might impact their lives, and so word of Jesus spread all throughout Galilee. Yet, from Luke’s account, we haven’t much of an idea what they might have been saying about Jesus. We only know that he has been baptized, and that he spent 40 days in the wilderness as a time of preparation. It is possible that this was all anyone knew as they talked about him through the surrounding Galilean countryside. […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 1: The Things We Hope For

John 2:1-11 When I was a child, my elementary school held a pumpkin decorating competition every Halloween, and I wanted to win so much. Competition was stiff, though. Every year you would see parents carrying in elaborate creations that took your breath away – and you knew who made that creation. It wasn’t the kid. Still, I kept trying. One year I decided I would decorate my pumpkin like a spider. So I began working on it, black spray paint, wire hangers for legs. My mother watched and offered some suggestions, but I did all the hands-on work. And I won. Well, I was elated. I could not stop talking about it for the rest of the day, about how I did this, all by myself, and I won. It was all “I, I, I.” And then my father took me aside. He reminded me that my mother had been […]