I want to start by sharing that for most of this week, I had an entirely different sermon planned. You’ll know this to be true because of the printed out labyrinths in your bulletin today. I was planning to invite you to use them as I preached on the road to Emmaus being like a labyrinth—full of twists and turns, with an ability to see the center, not a maze but not always a clear path—and how we could see this in the story from Luke today. And that is still likely true and y

Good morning! It’s good to be back with you all. I’m honestly glad to be here on this second Sunday of Easter. This Sunday doesn’t always get a preacher’s best work—we’re tired after Holy Week, sometimes even away—but even in a different kind of exhaustion, I’m grateful to sit with this text and wonder what it has to say as we begin the Easter season. What strikes me about this moment for the disciples after the resurrection is how different it is from how Easter is celebrate

You may recall that I love the poet Mary Oliver. I love the way she tells the truth about the world—its beauty, its ache, its ordinary holiness. She had this gift of looking directly at what is real and still finding, tucked somewhere inside it, a glimmer of wonder. There’s a poem of hers called Don’t Hesitate , that is fitting for Advent. It begins: If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. And she goes on: Joy is not made to be a crumb. Joy i

There is something about Advent that asks us to sit with holy discomfort. While the world is already singing carols, stringing lights, and racing through to-do lists, here in the church the tone is different. Advent is slower. Advent is spacious. Advent is honest. It asks us not only to remember that Christ came long ago, but to prepare our lives and hearts for Christ’s coming now — and Christ’s coming again. Last week, we heard Jesus in Matthew 24 speak unsettling words: Two