The Little Scroll

March 1, 2026, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” My own encounter with Nicodemus goes back to 1966 when I was 19 years old.  I was an airman with two stripes stationed in England, a member of a group of Americans who called ourselves the “Christian Vocation Group.” On Sunday evenings we brought worship services to vicarless Anglican churches. We took turns leading the hymns, reading the scriptures, leading the litanies, and preaching the message. One night in November it was my turn to preach. I have to cringe a little at my teen-age presumption that I had something to say to a tiny congregation of mostly elderly women. But lack of experience didn’t stop me. Back then most of my sermons were Billy Graham imitations consisting of hoisting my bible and shouting, “The BIBLE says …” That night I was preaching on Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus as it is told in the K...

February 22, 2026, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y. The waters of baptism have scarcely dried from his skin when Jesus is led to the desert to be tempted by the devil. If we imagine ourselves in this scene, alone in the desert, we can feel the pressure.  Every day when we pray we repeat the plea: Do not lead us into temptation. But we are surrounded by temptation. And because we Lutherans are simultaneously saints and sinners, it’s not unheard of that we surrender to it. For me, this is so commonplace that I don’t even sense the presence of the devil. I do take some solace that in my 80th year my debaucheries are limited to too many sweets, too much overeating, too much television, too much grumbling about the next door neighbor, and too much dawdling over things that must be done. If I had been with Jesus in the desert I might have suggested we call it a night and send out for bagels. Sometimes, at least in opera and literature, the devil’s temptation is transact...

  I first met Stephen Bouman in November 2001. He was one of several U.S. church leaders who welcomed a “Living Letters” delegation from the Geneva offices of the World Council of Churches. The delegation representing Christians from around the world came to express pastoral love and support to Americans following the terrorist attacks of September 11. Ground Zero was still smoking as we gathered around its rim to pray. It quickly became clear to me that Steve – I should call him Bishop Bouman – was in deep mourning for the friends who were lost on September 11. As Lutheran bishop of Metropolitan New York, he knew many of the fire fighters and first responders who died that day. He was grieving their loss and openly angry about the attack. Over the next several months I heard Steve try to make sense of the terror in sermons in the Interchurch Center chapel and remarks elsewhere. He brought together those of us who were struggling alone with our grief. I came to look upon him as the...

  February 15, 2026, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y. (Edited from a previous homily on the Transfiguration.) Stargazing was one of my favorite pursuits when I was growing up in Central New York State. You didn’t need a telescope to enjoy it because the stars and the planets formed a vivid panorama every cloudless night.  Here, in most of the five boroughs, it’s not so easy to pick out the Big Dipper or Orion’s Belt. In the wonderful Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights, Abuela Claudia sings about the intensity of the stars over Cuba. “In Nueva York, we can’t see beyond our street lights.” In Vieja York where I lived, you could lay on your back summer nights and stargaze, occasionally spotting fleeting trails of meteorites blazing on the edge the atmosphere. You could pick out Jupiter and Mars, identify constellations, and ask yourself the same questions our ancestors asked thousands of years before us. What else is up there? Is space infinite? How do I ...

February 8, 2026. Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. If your doctor told you to go on a salt-free diet, would you shrug compliantly and say, “Okay”? Or would you prefer to let salt to cascade down on your burger because salt makes everything taste better? And when you’re falling asleep at night, do you leave the light on because it makes you feel safer, especially if you need to stumble to the bathroom? Or do you sleep better if you cocoon yourself in darkness, pull the blankets over your head, and try not to think about the problems of the day? When Jesus called his followers the salt of the earth and the light of the world, he knew they would understand the power of both images. We can’t live without salt and light and to be both salt and light elevates each of us to superpowers of faith. “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus said, “but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but it thrown out and tramp...