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Thom Fiet

Inside Out

Do You Want to Be Healed?

“Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people – blind, crippled, paralyzed – were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, ‘Do you want to get well?’” – John 5:1-6, The…
Thom Fiet
June 30, 2016
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Eulogy

FEBRUARY 2012: INSIDE OUT by Thom Fiet "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48 Trudy Brower prayed for us in English, and then she prayed again for us in German, the assumption being that prayers spoken in German are superior to those spoken in any other language. Trudy was precise, like a micrometer. She expected perfection from those in her family and social circles. She expected it of her pastor, heaven help him. And…
Thom Fiet
October 30, 2014
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Amid the Swelter of Chaos

Thom Fiet A woman stared at her portrait, still shimmering new from the hand of the master, Pablo Picasso. Before her, imprisoned in the frame, a tangle of broken shapes—a triangle representing her head, rectangles for extremities, an oval for a torso. A shock of tormented tassel of hair. A single dot representing what she thought to be her ample bosom (or was the dot her eye?). Horrified, she shouted, "This doesn't look at all like me, not at all!"…
Thom Fiet
September 1, 2013
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Putting Things to Right

Thom Fiet The scriptures give us a great many views of God, and we, of course, are eager to add our own. Here on the banks of the Jordan River in Matthew 3, we get the feeling that we are seeing something of the core of who God is. Everyone at the Jordan is being baptized into the reality of heaven, but only Jesus arrives to be baptized into the reality of humanity. When Jesus is baptized, he is entering…
Thom Fiet
January 1, 2013
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Full House

Good morning passengers; a service of Christian, Protestant worship will begin in twenty minutes in Sojourners' chapel. The invitation echoed down each elevated concourse, every traveler given notice of divine, heavenly worship, materializing just steps away from them. In twenty minutes time, the airport would become holy ground. Unfortunately, the public address system, now thirty-one years old, translated the message into its own exotic tongue: goo mooing pissers, a cervix of Chrizjan Prostate wooship will begin in tawny minarets in…
Thom Fiet
August 1, 2009
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Witchelder

It did seem odd bringing a witch to a denominational meeting. Not as odd as having Jo serving as an Elder in our church, but still odd enough. Serving two small congregations, sometimes a witch is what is offered in terms of spiritual leadership. We go with the horses we've got. These are matters not fully anticipated in church polity courses. So off we went, she cheerful as usual, and I was relieved she was not wearing the outfit I…
Thom Fiet
October 16, 2008
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Preaching Tips

"We are sorry for the loss of your friend, and his courageous battle against cancer; but it is not interesting." I heard these words from a Pulitzer Prize winning poet at the University of Iowa a few years ago. It did not sound pastoral at the time. I have changed my mind. I think he is right. Our losses are not interesting. Even the loss of Jesus, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior, is not interesting. It is…
Thom Fiet
February 1, 2008
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Grandpa’s Prisons

My father called me the other day, with all the excitement of a boy who had bagged his first rabbit. He informed me that he had started investing for his grandchildren, something "that's going to reap huge dividends, a guaranteed thing." Transparency is not one of his virtues, so it took a few tries for him to spill the beans. The "guaranteed thing" happened to be investing in...prisons. My father was investing for his grandchildren in private prisons in Texas…
Thom Fiet
January 16, 2005
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Prostrate Cancer

At what point do you correct a parishioner about his insistence that he has prostrate cancer?  How do you break the good news to him that he does not have cancer only when he is lying down, but he has cancer in a place, not in a position?  Am I wrong to think that these matters are important?   In the Reformed tradition, we pride ourselves on getting things right.  Understandably, we aim for precision in naming things.  We are good…
Thom Fiet
June 1, 2004