This page contains Chapel Sermons recorded and posted from September 16, 2004 to December 31, 2006. For current Chapel Sermons, follow the link to the LPTS Chapel Sermons Blog.

Audio - MP3 files are higher quality, but may take over a minute to start playing. The quickest way to hear a sermon, whether your connection is broadband or dialup, is to click on the Dialup-Flash link.

Amy Plantinga Pauw, Henry P. Mobley Professor of Doctrinal Theology
Homily
Isaiah 56:1-8
December 1, 2006

This sermon was preached in Caldwell Chapel on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, 2006. The service was a collaborative effort of the Theologies of the Global South class. Isaiah 56:1-8 proclaims that God gathers the outcasts of Israel, and declares them to be the guardians of God's covenant, the loyal servants of the Holy One, the lovers of God's name, and heirs of God's promised future. Likewise, the outcasts of our day, especially those suffering the shame and stigma of HIV/AIDS, are at the head of God's banquet table, and the rest of us are invited to join them.

Garnett Foster, D.Min. Studies, Polity and Director of Field Education and Ministry Placement
“Commanded to Give Thanks”
Psalm 136; I Thessalonians 5:16-18
November 17, 2006

"The writer of I Thessalonians commands us to give thanks. That indicates that thanksgiving is not an emotion, but a discipline, a practice of the Christian faith - and a practice that transforms us."

Johnny B. Hill, Assistant Professor of Theology
“God's Politics of Love”
1 John 4:16-21
November 3, 2006

"...the Apostle John offers us a refreshing and radical vision of God's way of ordering human relationships, community, and public life. By grounding love of God in the creative space of relationships with others, John provides enormous insight to what it means to live faithfully, courageously, and prophetically today-not just for interpersonal relations but ordering social life as well."

Patricia Kathleen Tull, A. B. Rhodes Professor of Old Testament
Batya, The Daughter of God
Oct. 27, 2006

The Pharaoh's daughter's immediate action to save the child she found in the reeds set in motion much larger liberation than she could have imagined. We never know what our mustard seeds of faithful action will grow into.

Susan Garrett, Professor of New Testament
“Second Sight”
Psalm 22:1-11; Mark 8:27-38
October 13, 2006

Marion L. Soards, Professor of New Testament
Luke 19:1-10
Sept. 22, 2006

"Jesus' encounter with Zacchaeus in Luke 19 illustrates the eternal truth that God's grace saves us in and through Jesus Christ. That is, grace takes us and makes us to be the people that God would have us to be."

Johanna W. H. Bos, Dora Pierce Professor of Bible and Professor of Old Testament

Sept. 15, 2006

Patricia Kathleen Tull, A. B. Rhodes Professor of Old Testament
Psalm 125
Sept. 8, 2006

Psalm 125 proclaims that those who trust in God are are "like Mount Zion, which can never be moved, but abides forever." Ironically, Mount Zion has historically been located in three separate places in the course of Jerusalem's history. This sermon explores the ways that even this fact helps us better understand the nature of trust in God, which is always on the move, yet is rooted in the bedrock of divine faithfulness.

Patricia Kathleen Tull, A. B. Rhodes Professor of Old Testament
Romans 12:9-21; Psalm 133
April 21, 2006

Psalm 133 describes "kindred dwelling together" as good and pleasant--a surprising description given the large number of stories of sibling conflict in Scripture and the difficulty most people experience living with others in our own families, churches, and societies. The Psalm sets in sharp relief the story of Jacob's stealing of his father's only blessing from his brother Esau. What happened between Jacob and Esau in subsequent years offers important perspective on both the difficulty and the urgency of seeking the blessing of kinship.

Christopher L. Elwood, Professor of Historical Theology
"The Politics of Jesus"
Psalm 27; Mark 15:6-20
April 7, 2006

Is there politics in this story? The familiar story of Jesus’ passion is surprising in its relevance. As together we seek ways to embody God’s call for justice, we may find we cannot do without the politics of Jesus.

Audio, Broadband - MP3

Johanna W. H. Bos, Dora Pierce Professor of Bible and Professor of Old Testament
“What Women Want”
2 Kings 4:8ff.
March 10, 2006

This sermon is dedicated to the memory of Coretta Scott King, Betty Friedan and Anne Braden, whose passing we mourn and whose lives remain for us shining illustrations of women who lived their God-given freedom, dignity and equality in exemplary ways.

Dean K. Thompson, President and Professor of Ministry
“Lent and the Covenant God Keeps”
Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15; I Peter 3:18-22
March 3, 2006

Here we ponder biblical texts for the First Sunday in Lent. As we commence our sacred journey toward Holy Week, our Scripture lessons focus on water: flood water in the story of Noah and his people, and baptismal water in the story of Jesus and his people.

David C. Hester, Dean of the Seminary, VP for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Christian Education
Convocation Address
"A Pedagogy of Redemption"
Romans 8: 18-25; Micah 4:1-4
February 17, 2006

Louisville Seminary is at a kairos moment in its life, as we commit ourselves to becoming an anti-racist and multicultural community and begin in the fall a new curriculum. Our vocation and identity as a seminary of the Presbyterian Church (USA), with the mission of preparing men and women to participate in the continuing redemptive ministry of Jesus Christ for the world, requires us to have a "pedagogy of redemption" that equips our students to be practical theologians who can, in turn, teach those they serve to live redemptively in the world God loves.

Kerry Rice, Director of Admissions
"Expecting, Preparing and Waiting"
Isaiah 5:8-17; Revelation 1:1-8
December 2, 2005

Advent is a season of Expectation. It is the season that we anxiously await the birth of the child king, the babe born in a stable on Christmas morning. Advent is the season
of preparation. We prepare for his coming and his ministry among us. And Advent is a season of waiting. We await not only the birth of the Christ child, but for Christ to come again in glory.

Robert Howard, Adjunct Professor of Homiletics
"Final Exam"
Matthew 25:31-46
November 18, 2005

Jesus Christ gives us his own version of a "final exam" in the final judgment image of the sorting of the sheep and the goats. What seems to be important for Jesus is ordinary human actions of feeding, clothing, visiting, of caring for the outsiders, with whom Christ identifies. And whenever we do care for them, we will find the Christ for whom we long.

Susan Garrett, Professor of New Testament
“Angelification”
Ezekiel 1:26-28; Daniel 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
November 4, 2005

Jesus shows forth the glory of God. We reflect that glory when we allow ourselves to be remade in the image of Jesus' self-giving love.

Amy Plantinga Pauw, Henry P. Mobley Professor of Doctrinal Theology
Homily
Psalm 105:1-6
Matthew 20:1-16
September 16, 2005

The parable in Matthew 20:1-16 overturns our first come first served world. That is good news for the survivors of hurricane Katrina and for all of us.

Dean K. Thompson, President and Professor of Ministry
“On Getting to Know Jesus Better”
Psalm 23; John 6:47-69
September 9, 2005

This sermon focuses on the hope of a personal encounter with Jesus Christ in our daily lives of discipleship and obedience to his call. This sermon was preached at a communion service. It was influenced by novelist Marilynne Robinson’s description of John Calvin’s notion of communion, which is “the idea of experience as encounter.” This sermon was also influenced by LPTS professor Susan Garrett’s Bangor Theological Seminary Lectures of 2005. Garrett declares that the churches of mainline Protestantism “must show people to a personal God, to Jesus Christ living and moving in our midst.”

Audio, Broadband - MP3

Text, PDF

Christopher L. Elwood, Professor of Historical Theology
Convocation Address
"Finding Treasure"
1 Kings 3:5-15; Matthew 13:44-53
September 8, 2005

What does it mean to invest extravagantly in God's reign in times such as these?

Audio, Broadband - MP3

David C. Hester, Dean of the Seminary, VP for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Christian Education
"Hospitality and Hope"
Luke 24:13-35; Psalm 146
April 8, 2005

Luke’s story of Emmaus means to help his hearers with their questions about what to do now that Jesus is gone. The living Christ remains—that’s what the two disciples asked the stranger to do—in the Gospel preached and the bread broken and shared with one another and with strangers, and hungry, hurting, vulnerable, and hopeless people like those whom Luke gathers around the Heavenly Banquet table he imagines earlier in the Gospel. The Risen Christ invites to the table everyone who is hungry for a satisfying life and longs for freedom, who still dares hope, despite a painful present, that redemption has come, that God does, as Psalm 146 claims, “keep faith forever” with God’s promise to mend a broken world for good. The Christ who bids us come to share in resurrection bread bids us also take food enough from here to feed hungering and thirsting people whose haunting omnipresence would make resurrection and redemption a lie—those people of Psalm 146 who live around us and with us and far away and not so far away who long for justice and peace and love and a good reason to get up in the morning.

Christopher L. Elwood, Professor of Historical Theology
"The Case for Seeing"
John 20:19-31
April 1, 2005

The old hymn tells us that "We walk by faith and not by sight..." And so, in most traditional interpretations of the story of so-called doubting Thomas, we are encouraged not to imitate the disciple who insists on seeing and touching the resurrected Jesus. But a closer reading suggests that visual experience is closely related to a biblical account of faith. The demand to see a real and tangible redemption just might be the touchstone of faith rather than its denial.

Patricia Kathleen Tull, A. B. Rhodes Professor of Old Testament
Let Evil Speedily Hunt Down the Violent: Reflections on Troubling Psalms in Turbulent Times
Psalm 140
September 16, 2004 (2004-05 Fall Convocation)

The biblical Psalms are considered texts that bring solace and peace in difficult times. One thinks of the Twenty-third Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd…,” and may immediately feel comforted by the familiar, “He leadeth me beside still waters, my cup overflows.” But how do we handle the texts in Psalms that seek vengeance on another, that implore God to smite the enemy? What do we make of such alienating language as “Let burning coals fall upon them! Let them be cast into pits, no more to rise!” (Psalm 140)