February 8, 2026 – Stay Salty
Last week, we heard from the prophet Micah. This week, we’re looking at a different prophet with a similar, but different message: Isaiah. The part of Isaiah we’re about to hear was likely written after the exile to Babylon. When the southern kingdom of Judah was overthrown in 687 BCE, Jerusalem was ransacked and the temple was destroyed. Most of the upper classes and skilled labor were carried into exile in Babylon, scattered throughout the empire. A full generation later, after the Persians had overthrown the Babylonians, the king allowed the people to return to their homeland and...
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2026 – What God Doesn’t Want From Us
We’re taking another slight detour this morning into the Old Testament. We’ve just heard the very beginning of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, the beatitudes – Jesus’ encouragement for a weary people, desperate for some hope. But we’re also going to flip back a few pages in our Bibles to hear from one of the Old Testament prophets, Micah. The prophets are not known for being subtle, but I want to give us some context for what we’re about to hear, so that we can make some more sense of it. What we now have in one short book (only 7 chapters long) are words from the prophet Micah that...
Read MoreJanuary 25, 2026 – Jesus Went
We took a detour into John last week, but today we’re back in Matthew. To catch up to where we are right now, here’s what’s happened so far. Matthew starts with a genealogy, then a very short story about Jesus’ birth, followed by Herod’s slaughter of the innocents and a couple stories about young Jesus. We’re introduced to John the Baptist, and then, Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River and immediately sent into the desert. He fasts for 40 days, and is tempted by the devil. He resists those temptations, and…that’s where we pick up the story. Scripture: Matthew 4:12-25 Now when...
Read MoreJanuary 18, 2026 – Come & See
After Jesus’ baptism, his public ministry really begins. But in John’s gospel, we don’t hear much from Jesus himself right off the bat – instead, we hear others proclaim who Jesus is and what Jesus is up to. As we listen to this passage from John’s gospel, I encourage you to pay attention to the names used for Jesus, and the way each person describes who Jesus is and what Jesus is doing. Scripture: John 1:29-42 The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me...
Read MoreJanuary 11, 2026: Claimed and Called
Today is Baptism of the Lord Sunday, and because we’re spending this year in the gospel according to Matthew with the Lectionary, we’ll be hearing Matthew’s version of this story. It’s four whole verses long, and it’s squished in between two much more intense stories, so this is a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ kind of story. Just before this, we meet John the Baptist in the desert, preaching repentance and forgiveness, clearing the way for the Messiah, and immersing folks in the Jordan River as a symbol of their repentance. This is the story we heard during Advent, where some...
Read MoreJanuary 4, 2026 – Rerouting
Welcome to a new year, friends, of wondering and wandering, of learning our way through Scripture together. This morning, we’re in the gospel according to Matthew. Today, we’re celebrating the Feast of Epiphany, the day when the magi from the east encountered Jesus for the first time. Our nativity scenes are a little misleading on this part—they did not actually arrive right after Jesus was born. Instead, they would have arrived when Jesus was one or two years old. But a running, screaming toddler Jesus is way less cute and contained than a newborn, so we tend to lump everyone together...
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