I'll Have The Curry.

A sermon for First Baptist Church of Austin, Texas Reformation Sunday October 30, 2022 John 8:31-36 I want to believe  What does it mean to know someone?   You can know a lot about a person by their social media presence. You can know things like a person’s favorite clothing store, their drink of choice, if they like to exercise, write sermons for a living, or enjoy traveling. You can see when they are walking their kid to school, photos of their best friends, and the latest product they are promoting. You can see where they go on vacations, if they prefer the mountains over the beach. Is this what it means to know someone though?  I know a lot about Lizzo, and olympic marathoners, and the bakery shop owner down the street simply from watching their instagram stories or seeing their posts. Yes, they are real people, with real things going on in their lives.  But I’ve never once had a conversation with any of these people.  I’ve never been able to sit down at a table for coffee or

Photo by  Priyanka Karmakar  on  Unsplash Sunday Morning prayers Genesis 18:1-10a Sixth Sunday after Pentecost July 17, 2022 Written by Carrie Houston I wrote this prayer for Sunday morning's service. The text for the morning was Genesis 18:1-10, the story of Abraham meeting three strangers and then offering water, bread, and food.  The very last verse is the promise that Sarah will have a baby.  What struck me the most about this passage was not the fact that a 99 year old woman would still be able to create life, but how Abraham's hospitality to these strangers was only made possible because of the work of someone else. In this case, he forces his wife to make and bake bread to feed the strangers, and gets his servants to do the dirty work of slaughtering a calf, all so he would have something to present to strangers. It struck me that so often there are people we don't even consider part of our lives, because they are invisible to us. Like the people that pick our food,

  A Sermon for First Baptist Church of Austin May 15, 2022 Graduate Recognition Sunday John 13:31-35 "Psalm 148"by Alyse Radenovic Love One Another In 1993, the funniest, most quirky and yet extremely memorable movie was released, right in the middle of my childhood. Known for its elaborate plot, extensive makeup and prosthetics budget, and an assembly of A-list actors, it became the second-highest-grossing film of that year, only behind Jurassic Park.   Released in theaters a month shy of my 10 th  birthday, somehow I was permitted to see this PG-13 rated movie, most likely because my sister and I begged and pleaded with our parents in the middle of a Blockbuster to let us rent it.    For all of you under 25, Blockbuster was a place where you walked into a brick and mortar store full of VHS-es as far as the eyes could see and paid $4.99 to take one home for the night to watch and promptly return the next day in order to avoid hefty late fees. We didn’t have access to every