Archives: Sermons

  • Transfiguration Sunday

    This Sunday is a holy day called Transfiguration Sunday. Transfiguration Sunday marks the end of the season after Epiphany (ordinary time) and begins the change to the season of Lent which leads up to Easter. Of course, Lent doesn’t start until Ash Wednesday, but Transfiguration Sunday marks the beginning of the change in season. Admittedly…

  • Second Sunday After Pentecost

    During Easter we talked quite a bit about the already and coming kingdom of God. We look ahead to it as the ideal, as the hopeful vision of the future, but yet we live according to that kingdom now. Paul in Galatians gives us an example of the social ethics that guide the community that…

  • Sixth Sunday of Easter

    Normally, when we are discussing the Kingdom of God in sermons, it is starting with the life of Jesus or the other New Testament writers or even the Old Testament writers and then reading forward to the church and how we are meant to live today. We talk about the tension of the already and…

  • Fifth Sunday in Lent

    We are going to start this morning, not with the Isaiah reading directly, but an earlier story. We are going to start this morning by talking about the exodus. One of my professors at NES, Richard Middleton, wrote a fantastic book entitled, “A New Heaven and A New Earth.” It is a book that was…

  • Third Sunday in Lent: Seeking God Through Repentance

    I find winter to be a horribly depressing time. I can’t stand the cold, the snow, or the gray, deadness of everything. I will admit that there are times when looking out the window and seeing the falling snow blanketing the ground can be beautiful. It makes for a picturesque Christmas eve. But it is,…

  • First Sunday in Lent

    Holidays at Arbor House You may have noticed over the last two years here at Arbor House, that we don’t celebrate a lot of holidays. Perhaps a better way to put it is, we are very particular in what holidays that we do celebrate. So while most churches would celebrate Mother’s day, Father’s day, Memorial…

  • Seventh Sunday After Epiphany

    A couple chapters after the Gospel reading in Luke 10, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. He tells that story in response to a question. Jesus is asked by an expert in the law, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says, “What is written in the Law?” To which the…

  • Third Sunday After Epiphany

    How do we know/relate to God? Scripture and worship In the biblical story the Israelites, after years in captivity in the exile, are allowed to return to Jerusalem. The city laid in ruins from when the Babylonians came and laid siege to it and conquered the nation of Israel. Much of the book of Ezra…

  • First Sunday of Advent

    Today is the beginning of a new year! This is one of those times in the church calendar that it is apparent that we are out of step with most of those around us. It is a time when we are reminded that our lives, our reality is ordered around the life of Jesus Christ…

  • Christ the King Sunday: Christ’s Kingdom According to Seekers or Cynics

    33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” 34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is…