Blog (Page 3)

June 2, 2022 It has been a heavy week. I am still sad and tired and angry and grieving over the loss of life in Uvalde and in the 20 mass shootings in our country since (https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/mass-shooting), not to mention cancer diagnoses, major surgeries, and the personal griefs and cares of the members of our congregation. I’ve spent the last week…

May 19, 2022 In Acts 10, Peter has a vision from God. It’s about food, but it isn’t just about food. Peter sees a blanket from heaven filled with animals that aren’t kosher to eat, and hears the voice of God inviting him to eat. At first he thinks it is a test from God to hold…

May 12, 2022 Last week we mentioned all the ways we’re listening and hoping to hear Christ’s voice clearly as we vision and plan for the years ahead. As we listen to scripture, to members of Spirit in the Hills, and to our neighbors who are not part of our congregation, how will we know…

May 5, 2022 Have you ever found yourself not quite catching what someone said? Needing them to repeat themselves or slow down a bit or maybe rephrase the statement? Maybe you were not quite sure they were talking to you, or you were not ready to listen, or something else was on your mind? Perhaps you were overcome with joy? with grief? Or it was just tough to…

April 28, 2022 “I will not believe until I see him and touch him with my own eyes and hands and feel the real and resurrected Christ for myself,” Thomas tells the disciples when they share with him the unbelievable news that they have seen the Lord alive again after he was dead and buried.  Thomas refuses to believe until it becomes real for him. Until he…

April 21, 2022 “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the angels ask the women at the tomb on Easter morning. They tell them that Jesus is not in the tomb, but alive. Hope is not gone but is expanding and growing and refuses to be uprooted by death and violence and rejection. After all, this is not death’s story, this is God’s story and…

April 7, 2022Time is money.I spent time.I wasted time.I just don’t have time for that. These phrases are common in our world. We experience time as a scarce resource that we only have so much of – and in some ways this is true. After all, at some point we will die – a fact…

March 31, 2022 Last Sunday we dwelled in the gospel reading (Luke 15) together, listening closely and trusting that God was speaking to us through scripture. As we shared the words and phrases that stood out to us in the text, a few of them that came to mind centered on the actions of the father. When asked to give the younger son inheritance, he does. He runs to meet the…

March 24, 2022 This week I want to offer a few ways our gospel reading from last Sunday, Luke 13:1-9, particularly Jesus’ parable about the fig tree that hasn’t produced fruit in three years and the gardener’s intercession to tend to it and cultivate it for another year before it is chopped down, speaks to this moment in which we find ourselves. As a…

March 17, 2022 Jesus gets a warning (or is it a threat? or both?) that Herod is out to kill him. In the face of violence and hatred, Jesus practices, proclaims, and lives empathy and compassion – the way of the cross that reveals true power through weakness and self-sacrifical love (Luke 13:31-35). But Pastor Drew, when we see evil at work so clearly in the world in…