This is the message I gave on November 11, 2012. “As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at
Continue reading →JUST God! and these are they Who minister at thine altar, God of Right! Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay On Israel’s Ark of light! What! preach, and kidnap men? Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor? Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then Bolt
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This is the sermon I preached on October 28, 2012. It comes from the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Also, note that the general scope and interpretation of this sermon comes from Parker Palmer’s book The Active Life.* The Problem with Scarcity This morning I want
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This is the message I gave on Sunday morning October 19, 2012. You can listen to the audio version of it here. Last week we started to tackle the difficult subject of money and the church at Camas Friends. We discussed some possible ways of approaching the subject in a
Continue reading →* “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule…all the living things that creep on earth.” _Curators and Caretakers The church often uses the word “stewardship” to generalize things that have to do with resources that we share in common. We have stewards who take care
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A couple months back I started feeling the tug to wrestle with the topic of money in the church. As a preacher, I’ve largely avoided the topic like the plague. These are the kinds of things I nightmares about. I was a budding and impressionable young man when PTL
Continue reading →For almost a year now Quakers from 8-10 different meetings in the Northwest have been getting together once a month for a “convergent worship gathering.” We move around to different meetinghouses and enjoy a time of bible reading, silence and worship sharing. Programmed and unprogrammed Friends alike enjoy the space
Continue reading →We know the world is rich with streams Renowned in song and story, Whose music murmurs through our dreams Of human love and glory: We know that Arno’s banks are fair, And Rhine has castled shadows, And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr God singing down their meadows. But while,
Continue reading →I bumped into this little cover image for the bible a few days ago and it got me thinking what people find acceptable when it comes to redesigning or “remixing” the bible through art. This has been happening for centuries. Sacred text depicted in art-form is nothing new.* This particular
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This is a short-story about how two women helped to bring change in our community. Shortly after I became the pastor at Camas Friends Church I was in my office when a knock came on the door. A ragged-looking woman was standing in the window. It was obvious she’d
Continue reading →A couple weeks ago my good friend Aaron and I were featured the “Union in Dialogue” blog, which is hosted by the Poverty Initiative. The post is about an action we participated in on behalf of the Longshoremen up in Longview, WA. I was honored to be on their blog
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Yesterday, the New York Times posted a slideshow from Judith Levitt of Catholic women who are priests. This might come as a surprise to some of you, but there is a growing resistance movement among Catholics who have been able to find loopholes in their own bi-laws and begin ordaining
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