The Fat Pastor

Love God. Live Well. Do Good.

[thefatpastor]

Why I cried

I pushed the button and didn’t feel a thing, and then I wept. When I told my doctor this, he nodded knowingly, compassionately and asked, “Did you feel like a failure?” That was part of it, but not the whole story. I am the perfect case for taking a GLP-1. When I sat with my doctor and finally allowed him to prescribe one for me, I was 48 years old, 390 pounds, and had type-2 diabetes. I have…

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Gospel According to the Peanuts liturgy

I am finishing up a sermon series at my church called The Gospel According to Peanuts. It is not really based on the book of the same name, although I did use it as a resource. Each week we looked at a different Peanuts character and found insight into our faith. The six-week series focused on Charlie Brown, the seeker; Lucy, the foil; Schroeder, the artist; Linus, the sage; Franklin, Peppermint…

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Affirmation of Faith based on the Revised Social Principles

I wrote this for my church to use during a four-part series on the Revised Social Principles of the United Methodist Church. We affirm that human beings are made for God and for one another. We celebrate the diversity of our human family and respond to God’s call in the world through acts of mercy and justice. We affirm that all creation belongs to God and is a manifestation of God’s goodness.…

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Ellie's Lenten reflection

I have written many times about being a Dad on this blog. Today I offer this space to a reflection that my oldest daughter wrote. She is a 17-year-old junior in high school. She was baptized in a United Methodist Church. She was confirmed in a United Methodist Church. She has danced in the aisles and led from the pulpit in United Methodist Churches. Last summer at a United Methodist Church camp…

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The Grandmothers: Bathsheba

Part four in this four part series on the women in Jesus’ genealogy  Bathsheba was a survivor. Her story is told in two distinct and independent passages. In the first, which we share today, she is a voiceless victim of King David. The second comes in the first two chapters of 1 Kings, when David is near death. In this passage, she is a clever strategist who ensures her son Solomon becomes…

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The Grandmothers: Ruth

Part three in this four part series on the women in Jesus’ genealogy According to some ratings statistics, the Hallmark Channel has been the top entertainment network on basic cable in the fourth quarter of the year for several years. They are not the top network the other three quarters of the year. The difference? Hallmark knows Christmas. The Hallmark Channel website claims that they have a…

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The Grandmothers: Rahab

“Rahab the prostitute” is named twice in the New Testament as a model of faith in action. Both James 2:25 and Hebrews 11:31 praise her and cite her as an example of someone who should be honored. She is named in Matthew 1:5 as one of the mothers in Jesus’ genealogy. Rahab’s inn seemed to serve as a part of the wall that surrounded Jericho (this was a common way to build ancient cities, with the…

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Affirmation of Faith honoring the Grandmothers

*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH We honor the women who gave birth to hope, who were lifted up by Matthew as the foremothers of the One who came at Christmas. We honor the women who used their own agency in a world that tried to rob them of it, so that their families could survive and their stories could be told. We believe in God the mother and father of us all, creator of heaven and earth, whose…

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[thefatpastor]

The Grandmothers: Tamar

Part one of four in this Advent series on the women of Jesus’ genealogy. This Advent I will take four weeks to write about the grandmothers of Jesus. These are the women who were named in the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of Matthew. These four women were all either explicitly Gentile or connected intimately connected to Gentiles. Tamar’s father was from a Canaanite city. Rahab was a…

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The Great Thanksgiving honoring the Grandmothers of Jesus

This year I will be preaching from the The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of the Bible throughout the Year by Ashley Wilcox. The year begins with Advent, and the four Advent readings include the stories of the four women included in the genealogy of Mary’s husband as told in the Gospel of Matthew. This year, the first Sunday of Advent is also the first Sunday of the month, which means it…

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[thefatpastor]

Somebody wrote me a letter

This post is long. At nearly 5000 words, it is the longest post I have ever written. It is an extended response to a letter I received. After the introduction, the words in bold are quotes from my previous sermons. The words in italics are direct quotes (exactly as they were printed) from the letter I received. On June 25 my church, Two Rivers United Methodist Church, celebrated Reconciling…

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Pentecost and hope yet unseen

IGRC for Unity Devotional: 5/28/2023 Scripture: Acts 2:1-4; Romans 8:18-31 On this Pentecost Sunday, the Narrative Lectionary gives us the regular Acts 2 story, but combines it with a part of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Romans 8:28 always brings me back in time – to circa 2002 and the very first sermon I preached. I was hired at age 24ish to be youth director at Mackinaw UMC by Rev. Dan…

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[thefatpastor]

Two Easter stories

The stories we tell may entertain us, but the stories we believe shape us. Which story will we believe?

Matthew 28:1-15 They say this is the golden age of television. The streaming services, hungry for content, have empowered new story tellers to tell incredible stories. The stories being told are incredibly entertaining. They wrestle with true emotion, blend lines between comedy and drama, create fantastic new worlds, and reveal truths about society, masculinity, racism, inclusion, and emotional…

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The genealogy of Jesus

The genealogy of Jesus

Matthew 1:1-17 Searching one’s genealogy has always been a popular hobby, but technology has helped create an explosion in the last decade or so. First, the ability to network on the internet made data collection more powerful as distant relatives could link up with each other without having any previous knowledge of the other’s existence. Finding one distant cousin could suddenly open enormous…

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Inspiration and Purpose

IGRC For Unity Devotional for October 16, 2022 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 Thomas Edison famously said that “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” The writer of 2 Timothy claims that Scripture is 100% inspiration. Yet what is inspiration? The Greek word translated to “inspiration” is theopnuestos. In this word we can see the roots for “God” and “Breath.” So inspired seems to literally mean…

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Will we still fear the "giants in the land"?

Will we still fear the “giants in the land”?

There are moments when I read a passage of Scripture and think, “how can this possibly apply to the real world?” Sometimes Jesus’ command to “turn the other cheek,” his call to “release the captives,” or the Torah’s system of forgiving all debt feel like impossible dreams that couldn’t work in modern society. Other parts, like Jonah being swallowed by a fish, Balaam’s donkey speaking to him, all…

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[thefatpastor]

Jesus forgave them from the cross, but didn't come back to hang out with them.

Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. It just means that they can't hurt you any more, and boundaries help make sure of it.

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