What is the first image that comes to your mind when you think of the Christmas story? Maybe it’s the stable, with Mary, Joseph, then of course Jesus in the manger, with ox and donkey and adoring shepherds beholding this miracle. A rather quiet and peaceful scene. And many of our favorite Christmas carols reflect […]
I love Advent. I love this time of anticipation and mystery, this time of waiting and hope. Not all is well in the world, but God is there, Immanuel, to guide us through the mess of our lives. And each Advent, I look forward to hearing the voice of one whose life is about as […]
Rejoice or Repent? Sermon Luke 3:7-18 3rd Advent December 12th, 2021 Today I want to talk about one of the most beloved figures of the Christmas season – and, no, I am not talking about Santa, Rudolph, or Frosty. I am talking about angels. We see angels on Christmas cards, as decorations, and ornaments. And […]
The gospel according to Luke is the only gospel that starts with an extensive narrative about John the Baptist’s conception and birth (maybe it can be viewed as a ‘prequel’ to the story of Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth). The first people we hear about (after some general introductory notes) are Zechariah and Elizabeth, […]
The end is near! This is not necessarily a message we expect or want to hear during this time of year. The world around us is already in full Christmas holiday mode. Santa, Rudolph, and Frosty have begun their perennial rule. Now as people of the church we might know that […]
The month of November always reminds me of endings. According to the church calendar, yet another year comes to a close, and we begin a new church year with the season of Advent – I know this is quite counter-cultural and not how the world at large looks at the calendar. But even our […]
“Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” What images come to your mind when you hear these words? Maybe images of the World Trade Center, tumbling after the horrendous terrorist attacks. Maybe images of the 1906 or 1989 earthquakes here in San Francisco. Maybe […]
As you may know, I am currently interviewing for a positions in New York City. The most intense interview process so far involved three talks with members of the call committee of a certain congregation. Now what struck me that, during each of these conversations, I was asked, ‘Do you believe politics belong in […]
This is not a sermon as usual, but a monologue by ‘Katie Luther’, Martin Luther’s wife. Greetings, dear People! Ah, it is so good to see all of you again, now that the worst of the recent plague is over. Pestilence, wars, famine, violence, natural disasters – what toils we have to deal with […]
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. This must be one of the best known lines from a hymn. And maybe this is the most important verse to know by heart, because it summarizes what […]
Let me start with a question: why do people worship, be it in person or, right now, via a screen? Maybe people feel connected to that great cloud of witnesses, which transcends time and space, whenever they worship. Maybe these services feed them through the familiar words of song and prayer. And maybe they […]
Good teacher, what do I have to do? The man who is asking this question in today’s gospel lesson is a man who is used to doing. We hear he is a man with many possessions, so presumably he is someone who has to do something in order to acquire or at least maintain […]
Today is an important day on the German calendar: October 3rd is German Unity Day. This national holiday was established in 1990, on the day the German reunification was ratified by the German president – not quite a year after the wall between East and West Germany started to come down and the […]
On our recent trip to Europe, my husband Fred and I must have visited around 40 churches. We saw 10 in Cologne alone – and, yes, there are quite a few interesting churches besides the famous cathedral. We saw cathedrals – and ancient humble village churches. We saw any style: Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, […]
As my husband Fred and I were planning our recent trip to Germany, Fred insisted on going to a few places: Cologne and Trier HAD to be on our itinerary. But he also wanted to go to Bingen on the banks of the Rhine River. He wanted to pay homage to the fascinating 12th […]
Yesterday we commemorated the 20th (!) anniversary of 9/11. Can you believe it’s been 20 years? On that fateful day in 2001, 4 commercial airliners were hijacked by Muslim extremists. 3 of them plowed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The 4th […]
Modern medicine is amazing. Just think about how many illnesses can be treated today, which would have been debilitating or maybe even fatal just a hundred year ago. My husband, who has type 1 diabetes, often says that he probably would not have survived very long, had he lived at the beginning of the […]
Today I want to talk about food. What we eat says a lot about where we are coming from, what our background is, how affluent we are. Food is culture. One of the great things being in the Bay Area is that we have the chance to taste so many different foods from […]
A couple of weeks ago, the Pacific Northwest experienced an unprecedented and also relentless heatwave that lasted for more than a week. In British Columbia, a new heat record of 121 degrees Fahrenheit – or 50 degrees Celsius – was set. Portland, Oregon, broke the heat record three days in a row, topping out […]
California almost 24 years ago, I was going through a pastoral residency program back in Northern Germany, and I lived in a small rural community called Dötlingen. Now Dötlingen was and still is a picture book kind of village, with an oak tree in the village center that is more than 1,000 years old, half-timbered […]
