The CBS Evening News with Jesus, a Syrophoenician Woman, & Dan Rather

a sermon on Isaiah 35.4-7, James 2.1-17, & Mark 7.24-37

September 9th, 2011 | @LCMontheHILL

One of my heroes growing up was CBS Evening News anchor, Dan Rather. I grew up in rural North Carolina, far enough away from town that we didn't have access to cable television. Of the 2.5 television stations we did receive, the only one we could get with any semblance of regularity and without project funding from NASA was CBS. So, every week night at 6:30pm my family would, like clockwork, tune into the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. 

Over time, after years of watching him every night, Mr. Rather become someone whom I greatly admired. I loved what he gave me. He was my connection with the mystery of all that was happening beyond the borders of the neighboring soybean fields, all that lie outside the reach of our rural county. He took all the world’s events, wrestled out the truth, and gave it to me.

I became such a fan that at some point in elementary school I acquired a series of videocassettes CBS had produced that were essentially the greatest hits of the evening news. I watched Rather on the convention room floor in Chicago. I saw Cronkite reporting on the assassination of President Kennedy and the civil rights movement. There was Murrow taking on McCarthy. Watching, rewinding, and re-watching those videos until the tape gave out, I came to see Mr. Rather as one in a long line of the ones called to the holy vocation of news anchor, called to be society’s designated arbiters of truth. 

An Appalachian Iliad

a Holy Trinity sermon on John 3 | June 3rd, 2012 | @ Grace, Boulder

It is good to be back living in the shadow of the mountains. As my accent might reveal in an occasional feel or well, I grew up in the shadows of the southern Appalachians. As I’ve grappled with this aspect of my identity, I have developed a deep respect for southern Appalachian literature. 

Life lived and described in prose in this place is always measured against the backdrop of the mountains. They function as monuments to eternity, as sentinels of the centuries. Generations come and go, trying scape together a life in this unforgiving terrain while the mountains remain. Against this backdrop, an emphasis of human frailty emerges and with it a theology that proclaims the importance of the by and by. Humanity’s fragile fate seems as certain as the enduring presence of the mountains. Against such incredible odds, these Appalachian theologies proclaim that the best we can hope for is the life God promises in the world to come, because most assuredly the new life of Christ isn’t coming in this one. 

There is this holy place I know...

A sermon preached @LCMontheHILL on John 3.14-21, Numbers 21.4-9, Ephesians 2.1-10

There is this holy place I know...
It’s where a thread of asphalt winds through the hills of western North Carolina, tying together an old white house on the top of a hill, an apple orchard, the family church, and its adjoined cemetery. It’s a thread that stretches back over centuries. This holy place is a place where as an eight year old I walked barefoot through the apple orchard. Meandering down the rows of trees, I made my way back to the big white house with its rusted tin roof, lost in the captivating world of my own imagination.

I felt the stiff blades of grass and the sun baked clay push back against my exposed feet, when suddenly something shifted and my imaginative world came crashing down into reality. Under foot something moved, something squirmed. My eyes shot to the ground. Pinned beneath my foot were scales, a white under belly, and frantic writhing. I don’t do snakes; not now and most certainly not as an eight year old. So, I can’t tell you for certain if I stepped on a snake or if it was a fire-breathing dragon. Rather, instinctively, I ran, making a bee line straight through the orchard. With each breath, my heart raced and my lungs stretched, until finally I collapsed onto the ground in a heap.

The Oregon Trail: The Way of Christ

A sermon on Mark 1.29-39, preached at Rejoice Lutheran Church in Erie, Colorado. 

When I was in elementary school, I would race to get ready each morning. As soon as I woke up I’d cast off the covers, throw on some clothes, grab a quick breakfast, and be out the door and on my way in just minutes. When I arrived at school, I’d cautiously straddle the fine line between a quick shuffle and full on running, somewhere right around olympic speed walking, as I made my way down the covered sidewalks and linoleum floors of the fourth and fifth grade hall. The classroom at the end of this hall, the last room on the right, just before the principal’s office, cast a warm, yellow glow out into the hall and emitted a continual, reverberating hum that shook the whole of each student’s existence.