Category: Sermons

Luke 14:12-24    The faces around your table are an illustration of your community.  Think about your table when you have hosted a meal for more than just your nuclear family—maybe a holiday, maybe a birthday, maybe a meal “for no reason”, as my sister in law says when it is just time to get together.  Who is there?  How well do you know the dinner guests?  What is the atmosphere like?  What makes you the most anxious–Whether the roast is overdone or not?  Whether there will be enough food?  Or whether the conversation will turn to politics?  Or whether the guests will appreciate your clean house?  Or whether one person will get offended by someone else?  Do you pay attention to who sits next to who?  Who is at the head of the table?  And what is the role of the person sitting at the head of the table?

The faces around our table tell a lot about us.  Who is there and Continue reading “God-Sense: The Taste of Community” →

Luke 18:18-30      God-Sense is a way of exploring how we use our senses to increase our awareness of God’s presence, to better connect with God using more than our minds, which we Presbyterians are so good at!  Part of what I hope you have been sensing during our Lenten focus on God-Sense is that connecting with God is an intentional act.   Of course we can be surprised by God’s amazing presence any time—bowled over at an unexpected turn of events, a conquering of cancer cells, a call from a long separated family member.  In those kinds of times we connect with God in gratitude, with praise, with overflowing joy.  God is reaching out to connect with us through many different avenues on a continual basis.  Yet it can be easy to be oblivious to God’s presence:  we fill our days with work and worry, texts and trivialities, drama or boredom.  Being receptive to God-Sense, being open to connecting with God mostly requires being still for a time.  When we stop and make time to listen, to look, to touch, to feel, to taste —we put ourselves in a much better place to be aware of God’s presence.  We have been experimenting with different kinds of prayer experiences, including silence, movement, visual images, laying on of hands, a pleasing scent.

Take a slow deep breath.    Continue reading “Paying Attention” →