By Jake Wilson

• Taste and See by Jake Wilson (4/20/2012)
   

  Third Sunday of Easter

  Acts 3:12-19 Psalm 4 1 John 3:1-7 Luke 24:36b-48 The cover story for the April 16, 2012 issue of Time Magazine was entitled “Rethinking Heaven.”  In the article, the author contrasted the popular conceptions of heaven (as most recently found in the popular book “Heaven is for Real”) with more full bodied accounts of the afterlife as recently put forward by N.T. Wright and others.  Most people within the average congregation think of the afterlife and heaven as a realm filled with disembodied souls all hugging and congratulating each other on their arrival.  This is the place where we walk down streets of gold with our long deceased Aunt Sally and where God sits in...
• Wade in the Water by Jake Wilson (2/8/2012)
  [image] 6th week of Epiphany Feb. 12, 2012 2 Kings 5:1-14 Psalm 30 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Mark 1:40-45  Eighteen years ago, the Mississippi Annual Conference planted the next “mega church” in a small but rapidly growing community just ...
• From Where Does Our Help Come? by Jake Wilson (11/23/2011)

  [image]1st Sunday of Advent

  Isaiah 64:1-9 Psalm 80:1-7, 117-19 1 Cor. 1:3-9 Mark 13:24-37 On the first Sunday of Advent,...
• Bread from Heaven by Jake Wilson (9/14/2011)
  14th Sunday after Pentecost Exodus 16.2-15, Psalm 145.1-8, Philippians 1.21-30, Matthew 20.1-16 I’m the oldest of four lively children. As an adult I’m very aware of the strain that my siblings and I put on my parents. Raising children does not co...
• Jacob, Despite Jacob by Jake Wilson (7/7/2011)
  [image]In Preaching and Reading the Lectionary: A Three-Dimensional Approach to the Liturgical Year, O. Wesley Allen Jr. advocates for a what he calls a cumulative preaching strategy that focuses more on the sweep of a year’s worth of preaching than any one particular sermon.  As Allen explains “all pastors know (or at least hope), deep in their hearts, that the great power of preaching lies less in the individual sermon and more in the cumulative effect of preaching week in and week out to the same congregation, to the same commu...
• Preparing for Departure by Jake Wilson (5/19/2011)
  This week’s lectionary reading leads us into the farewell discourse (John 13.31-17.26) as Jesus prepares the disciples for his departure.  It can seem a little disorienting to follow up a month’s worth of post-resurrection appearances with Jesus preparing his disciples for his looming death on the cross. After all, for the last several weeks we have celebrate that Jesus is alive and on the loose, appearing in locked rooms, in gardens and on the road to Emmaus.  However, the day of Ascension is fast approaching and the lectionary readings of the next two weeks use the farewell discourse to prepare us for the Ascension of the resurrected Christ. On the eve of their last supper together, as Jesus prepared his disciples for his death, the question looming over the young Jesus mov...
• Internalizing what Externals Mean by Jake Wilson (3/31/2011)
  1 Samuel 16:1-13

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  We live in a culture obsessed with appearance.  Tanning beds promise us sun-kissed bodies year round.  Moleskine notebooks remind others of how creative we are and our designer eye wear helps us not only to see but to be seen.  In this image obsessed culture we are tempted to continually modify the external, often in an effort to avoid the work of tending to the inner life wh...
• A Small Part in a Great Story by Jake Wilson (12/17/2010)
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  Isaiah 7:10-26; Matthew 1:18-25 By Matthew 1:18, Matthew has already named Jesus as the Messiah several times. Indeed, Matthew’s genealogy is constructed to show that the son of Joseph and Mary is also the Messiah. Reading the birth narrative in light of the genealogy helps us remember that what we...
• All the Saints by Jake Wilson (11/4/2010)
  [image]Luke 20:27-40 Last week, Tobias Winright reminded us that October 30th was the feast of St. Marcellus who was martyred because of his refusal to participate in the idolatry of the Roman Empire. From very early on the Church understood the importance of remembering and celebrating those who had departed to be with the Lord. However, over her two thousand year history, the Church has gathered far too many saints...
• Freedom and Obedience by Jake Wilson (6/24/2010)
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  Galatians 5:1, 13-26 In Bound to be Free: Evangelical Catholic Engagements in Ecclesiology, Ethics, and Ecumenism Reinhard Hütter notes that speech about freedom often confuses different types of freedom. The freedom of autonomy differs from political freedom which differs s...
• Struck Blind on the Damascus Road by Jake Wilson (4/16/2010)
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  Acts 9.1-20 The conversion of Saul provides us with the New Testament example of a conversion experience.  Saul’s transformation from a persecutor of the Lord to an Apostle continues to serve as a word of hope to the sin soaked conscience of those who feel that truly their failings are too great to be forgiven. ...
• On Becoming a Seraph by Jake Wilson (2/2/2010)
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  The sixth chapter of Isaiah concludes the opening section of the book with a vision of God and the calling of a prophet. In the year that King Uzziah died Isaiah is gifted with a vision of God in the Temple. The vision offers relatively few details of God’s appearance. All we are told is that the Lord was sitting on a throne, high and lofty and that the hem ...