All Past Reflections

Sixth Sunday of Easter"The Advocate" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Psalm 66:8-20/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (John 14:15-21/NRSVUE) I encountered a lot of memorable personalities over the course of my twenty-five years in finance but one of the most memorable was...

Fourth Sunday of Easter"The Good Shepherd" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Ezekiel 34:1-10/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (John 10:1-11/NRSVUE) One summer when our daughters were very young we took them to a local carnival where they wanted to play one of those games of...

Second Sunday after Easter"Doubt" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Acts 2:14a, 22-32/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (John 20:19-31/NRSVUE) Anyone who’s been around church for a while could tell you that the Sunday after Easter, the Sunday after Christmas, Sundays of...

"A New Beginning"— Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Colossians 3:1-4, NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Matthew 28:1-10, NRSVUE) About this time of year back in 1957, Elvis Presley — the “King of Rock and Roll” — released a song that was number one on the Billboard Top 100 for...

Palm SundaySixth Sunday in Lent"The Good News Is...Inspiring Us to Act"— Rev. Brent Gundlah Zechariah 9:9-10Matthew 21:1-17 The story of Palm Sunday is one of the toughest a preacher has to deal with all year because it’s so familiar and so simple. Jesus rides into...

Fifth Sunday in Lent"Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Gospel Reading (John 8:2-11/NRSVUE)Second Gospel Reading (Matthew 23:23/NRSVUE) Today’s first reading from John’s Gospel is a really good story in and of itself, but there’s more to it...

Fourth Sunday in Lent"The Alien, the Orphan, and the Widow" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Deuteronomy 24:17-22/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Matthew 19:13-15/NRSVUE) Karl Barth was a minister in the Swiss Reformed Church and is widely acknowledged as being one of the...

Third Sunday in Lent"Impossible?" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Ephesians 3:20-21/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Mark 6:32-40/NRSVUE) When I left the finance business to do this ministry thing I thought I’d also left behind that industry’s obsession with numbers, but I...

First Sunday in Lent"Surprises" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Gospel Reading (John 2:1-11/NRSVUE)Second Gospel Reading (Matthew 13:31-32/NRSVUE) Not long after I decided to become a minister, both of my daughters made it very clear that they don’t want me to officiate...

Transfiguration Sunday"Being Change" — Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Exodus 24:12-18/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Matthew 17:1-9/NRSVUE) There are moments in all of our lives that provoke us into seeing things differently than we had before. And moments like these can...