Perfectly Imperfect in Every Way

Matthew 5:38-48 Question for the audience: How do you define perfection? If you are a student, think back to a time when you prepared that bit of homework so carefully. You worked very hard, you spent lots of time on it—you felt good about it. When you turned in your work to the teacher, you […]

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Yes, No, and…Whoa! Bizarro Jesus

Matthew 5:21-26; 33-37   -Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St. Louis, 1964 Money is the root of all evils: poverty is the fruit of all goodness.         Rumi, 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure. I am showering you with antitheses. But […]

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Mmmm…Salty…

Matthew 5:13-20    We’re about to talk about NaCl. But before we dig into salt, some things to think about: Prior to this, Jesus of Nazareth gave his famous speech called the beatitudes and here we find the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel continuing with some words you can also find in the Gospels of Mark and […]

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Re-framing Blessedness

Matthew 5:1-12 How do you greet people? How do people greet you? It depends on where you live, of course. In Hawai’i, someone might approach you and say: How’s it? In Philly and South Jersey, I hear this a lot: How YOU doin’? Or, this: Whazzup? or What’s up, yo? Or the really short version: […]

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