“Hope has to come up out of you … To find something worth hoping for is a very good place to start. There are things worth hoping for, there are good people, this is still a very beautiful world.” ~Wendell Berry ~~~ “Long ago,” the book of Hebrews begins, “long ago God spoke to our …
Category: Sermons
Here are reflections that I have given in various settings: at Fourth Presbyterian Church, at Grace Commons, at St. James, at Wicker Park Grace, or as a guest preacher in other settings.
For the Good of All
For the Good of All – July 3, 2016 Fourth Presbyterian Church Galatians 6:1-10 (NRSV) Our second reading today comes from Paul’s letter to the Galatian Churches. It’s an emotional and rhetorical letter as Paul is defending his honor and explaining his teachings to a community that has been infiltrated, so to speak, by teachers …
Into the Wilderness
Sermon – Into the Wilderness by Nanette Sawyer Jazz Vespers, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL June 16, 2016 Our biblical story today is from the book of 1 Kings—a book that begins with the death of King David, tells of the rise and fall of King Solomon, and the division of the kingdom into two …
Guided Meditation – Love in the face of hostility
+ Our question this week is: how can we love in the face of hostility, without becoming damaged, and without becoming retaliatory? How can we remain centered and find a core of inner peace that can make us whole and strong? Here’s a five minute meditation that I gave in a recent sermon at St. …
Be Amazing
For the last two weeks I’ve been preaching on 1 Corinthians 12, the verses where it talks about us having a variety of gifts empowered by the same spirit. It’s a message that Paul was giving to the church at Corinth, so that all people in the community would be honored and so that people …