September 6, 2015 Mark 7: 24-37 Rev. Catherine Purves What are we supposed to do when Jesus says something or does something that seems completely out of character? Today’s reading illustrates that this does sometimes happen. How do you explain away the pieces of the gospel puzzle that just don’t seem to fit? Does the presence of these awkward quotes and peculiar actions unnerve you? How can we make sense of them, and…
August 30, 2015 James 1: 17-25 Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Rev. Catherine Purves It is a well-known fact that Martin Luther, the great reformer, hated the book of James. He believed that it called the church back to an old legalism that Jesus himself opposed. Luther thought that James contradicted the gospel truth that faith in God’s grace is sufficient for salvation. Luther is not the only one to have trouble with…
August 23, 2015 John 6: 33-35, 56-69 Rev. Catherine Purves On the first Sunday of our vacation we attended the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmington, NC. They have a rather unusual way of welcoming visitors. At the end of the service a woman hovers around the front door with a basket full of little loaves of homemade bread. These mini-loaves are in small plastic bags tied with a green polka-dot ribbon, and attached…
July 19, 2015 2 Samuel 7: 1-14 Ephesians 2: 11-22 Rev. Catherine Purves If you stay in ministry long enough, sooner or later you get asked to do some strange things. For instance, have you ever been to a camp meeting? A number of years ago I was invited to be a Sunday evening speaker at a camp meeting just north of Tarentum – a camp meeting, in Tarentum for Pete’s sake! They…
July 12, 2015 Ephesians 1: 3-14 Rev. Catherine Purves In preparation for this sermon I read our text from Ephesians many, many times. It’s the kind of passage that you have to read a number of times, and even then you may feel that you are simply being swept away in an avalanche of words. This is one of those instances (and there are quite a few in the Bible) when it seems…