12-11-22 Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen. How is your Advent going? Are you going to finish strong, or did everything go off the rails starting the afternoon of the first Sunday in Advent? Are you behind on your Aldi Chocolate Advent Calendar? These texts for this 3rd week in Advent aren’t exactly helping foster any Christmas spirit- There is still no sign of Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, manger, or anything resembling the Christmas story. Instead, here’s John the Baptist, again! This week, tho ..read more

 3-13-22 Grace and peace to you from God our creator and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen. By now in Jesus’ ministry, Jesus has gone through “one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem” (Luke 13: 22) causing all kinds of “trouble.” He’s been healing on the Sabbath. He’s been casting out demons. He has fed the hungry. He has been spending time with all the wrong people, teaching radical ideas like “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” … all the while boldly making his way closer and closer to Jeru ..read more

 12-26-21 Grace to you and peace to God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.  Have you ever noticed that the rest of the world seems to forget about Christmas by about… 6 pm yesterday? How many of your neighbors are taking down their decorations today? How many trees have you already seen at the curb this morning? And depressingly, the Valentine’s day candy AND EASTER candy are already out in the stores!  It’s December 26th, and we want to put Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the sheep, and even baby Jesus in the manger bac ..read more

12-12-21  Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen. I just love the “Advent meme season.” It seems that every year, social media jokes about Advent get funnier and more numerous. Like the classic John the Baptist picture from a few years ago that is the perfect ideal visual for today, captioned by: “Happy Advent, you brood of vipers!” How’s that for a festive holiday message?  In a month where it kind of feels like nothing is festive and everything is on fire, so to speak, it feels like John the Ba ..read more

11-28-21 Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.  “It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine!” Actually, no, I don’t feel fine! I feel stressed! There are too many cars on the road, too many people shopping at Giant, my packages are all delayed because of “supply chain issues,” covid cases are trending back up even though vaccinations among 5-11-year-olds are rolling out. I would much rather stay home and binge watch “The Great Christmas Bake off” on Hulu.  Especially since this ..read more

 Grace to you and peace from the one who is and was and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, by the power of the holy spirit, Amen.  Today is known as Christ the King Sunday, or alternatively as Reign of Christ Sunday. In the liturgical calendar, today ends the church year, which does feel a little weird being right before Thanksgiving. It also feels strange, because we live in a world where a lot of countries are ruled by presidents and prime ministers… and so to speak of Christ as our king seems a bit out of touch. In our gospel reading, on this Christ the Ki ..read more

 Sermon 10-17-21 Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. “Be careful what you wish for.” We all know stories that have this as it’s lesson - once wished for, having what we desire seems awesome at the start, but we find out that there tends to be pesky, unforeseen consequences. While most of these stories include a magical element - a creature or item that grants these wishes, occasionally we find that this can still happen to us out in the real world - we finally receive something that we had been ..read more

 9-26-21 Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. This past Tuesday night, 5 members and staff from this congregation were recognized at the annual Vienna Mayor’s Volunteer Reception, for their tireless work during this summer’s Liberty Amendment’s month. Though it made for a very long night - about one hundred and fifty people were recognized that night - I was so impressed with many of the other volunteers and the community efforts they were being recognized for. Dozens of volunteers raised money for ..read more

 Sermon from 9-12-21 “God’s Work, Our lives” Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our lord and savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. It’s been cute seeing all the “first day of school” pictures on Facebook for the last few weeks! Everyone is wearing new clothes, new masks, new backpacks. We’re coming into a new season, there are new classes and schools to attend, new initiatives at work, new routines at home… but also still navigating a lot of uncertainty: Is my child safe at school? When will my child be eligible for the vaccine? Will there be ..read more

 Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Bye-bye, Summer of Bread! It’s time to get back to Mark. And what a doozie it is to get back to - on the surface it may seem like the Pharisees have a legitimate complaint to bring against Jesus and his followers – it IS kind of gross not to wash your hands before you eat. Especially now, after 18 months of a pandemic where, at least at the beginning, we obsessed about disinfecting EVERYTHING - hands, packages and mail, food from the store, hymnals, library boo ..read more