Sermons » Stephen Colón

I’d like to speak to God, please

The book of Job has something of a reputation for being a book about suffering, but I think that’s not the whole picture. I can see why people think of Job and think of suffering. Suffering is both the inciting incident and the setting of the book. I just don’t think it’s about suffering. I…
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You should probably have imposter syndrome

The passage Joe just read is the opening to the book of Ruth, a short story found in the portion of the Hebrew Scriptures that Christians have adopted as canon. In Jewish canon, it’s grouped with the five megillot, or scrolls—a collection of books that, liturgically, accompany Jewish festivals. The book of Ruth accompanies the…
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Why I won’t give up the “s” word

Each of the gospels–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John–have their own way of telling the story of Jesus. The author of Luke gave us a literary epic. We get the whole story of Jesus, from birth to resurrection, with a big chunk in the middle that is focused on Jesus’ public teachings. Luke spends 60% of…
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Feed my sheep

This chapter of the book of John is known to biblical scholars as the Appendix. While every copy of John’s gospel that exists includes this chapter—so it’s unlikely that it was added on by a different author, or completely after the fact—it’s clear for literary reasons that the original writer of the gospel of John…
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The father who forgot to count

The story that Tim just read is a children’s adaptation of the scripture for today, a parable you may have heard described as the story of the “prodigal son.” The most popular contemporary interpretations would tell you that this is a story about redemption. A young son of a rich man disrespects his father, asking…
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Advent I: Hope and Bicycles

I was a little puzzled the first time I learned this is the passage for the first Sunday of Advent in Year C. And I must confess, I rolled my eyes a little when Pastor Kelly told me you all would be on the lectionary for Advent. After all, the theme for this week is…
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