Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow
From this nightmare?

These are the lyrics of the song “Will I” from the well-known musical “Rent” that is touring and playing at the Pantages right now—and that I got to see last night.  They are the words...

Last Thursday morning I went to visit the Islamic Center of Southern California on Vermont Avenue for the 3rd time in as many weeks.  This time I went to participate in a press conference to speak briefly about how our regional Lutheran churches and our synod are engag...

The first funeral that I conducted as a pastor was for a parakeet named Tweetie Bird.  It wasn’t the first pet funeral I had ever presided over---I had done plenty of that as a child beginning at the age of 5, solemnly burying and praying over the eventually deceased g...

Happy New Year!  I decided to preach about repentance today—to which we react as if repentance were a dirty word.  So to make my sermon more palatable, I thought I would start with an unrelated Biblical joke that a young parishioner of mine told me a few years ago.  Qu...

The rain had been falling steadily for hours when Jason got off work at the Eclectic Bar and Grill, and dashed to the bus stop a block and a half down Lankershim Avenue.  The Eclectic had stayed open even though it was Christmas Eve….not for diners as much as for the p...

Christmas Eve 2016: God’s Antidote

I want to start with a song: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas….." but wait.   Before we get to the “merry” part, I think we have first to name some  truths about this past year that can be summed up in the statement: 2016 has be...

   This is a bad news/good news sermon.  First the bad news. Earlier this week an acquaintance of mine, someone I worked with several years ago, posted on Facebook that it felt to her that while everyone else she knew was scurrying around hanging up bright lights and m...