Tag: Compassion

  • No More Write Offs – A Sermon On Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

    No More Write Offs – A Sermon On Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

    Last week I received an email from a woman who said she was unable to keep our appointment. It was the second time that had happened. I know from our first meeting a couple of months ago that she’s having a difficult time in her life. She ended her email by saying, “I hope you Read more

  • Be Angry Like Jesus – A Sermon On Mark 2:23-3:6

    Be Angry Like Jesus – A Sermon On Mark 2:23-3:6

    Last week Cyndy and I were leaving the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin when a little boy who was probably two or three or years old screamed at his mother, “I want to catch a dragonfly.” He was so angry and he was loud. He sat on the ground yelling and crying.  “But Read more

  • Fields Of Pain – A Sermon On Matthew 9:35-10:8

    Fields Of Pain – A Sermon On Matthew 9:35-10:8

    There’s a lot of pain in the world today. But you don’t need me to tell you that. It’s an everyday reality; physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain, and the systemic pain of violence, injustice, poverty, racism, to mention just a few. We read about in the news. We see it in the tears of Read more

  • When You’re Down To Five Loaves And Two Fish – A Sermon On Matthew 14:13-21

    When You’re Down To Five Loaves And Two Fish – A Sermon On Matthew 14:13-21

    Five loaves and two fish. I know what that’s like and I’ll bet you do too. The day of my divorce was a five loaves and two fish kind of day. And so was the day my older son died and the years that followed. A couple of weeks ago one of my best friends… Read more

  • Getting To The Heart Of The Migrant Situation – A Sermon On John 14:23-29

    Getting To The Heart Of The Migrant Situation – A Sermon On John 14:23-29

    Will we live with our hearts at peace or at war? That’s the question each one of us must answer, and we do. Every day we answer that question and our answer to that question determines our way of being toward others. How do we want to be toward the other? Read more

  • Struggling With The Cross – A Good Friday Sermon On John 18:1-19:42

    Struggling With The Cross – A Good Friday Sermon On John 18:1-19:42

    Before I talk about Good Friday I want to talk about Bad Friday. That’s the Friday that I struggle with. Don’t you? How are we to make sense of an all powerful, can do anything, kind of God who seemingly chooses to do nothing? That’s the Bad Friday question. Read more

  • Act As If God Did Not Exist

    Act As If God Did Not Exist

    When someone comes to you and asks for help, then you must not say to him with a pious mouth, ‘Have trust and cast your care on God!’ What you must do is act as if God did not exist, as if in the whole world there were only one person who could help the Read more

  • The Merciful Heart

    “What is a merciful heart? A heart which burns for all creation, for men and birds and animals and demons, and for every creature. As he calls them to mind and contemplates them, his eyes fill with tears. From the great and powerful compassion that grips the heart and from long endurance his heart diminishes, Read more