The Lord is with you!
Luke 1:26-38 (12/18/05)
But the angel said to Mary, The Lord is with you. No more anonymity, no more quietly living out our lives in relative obscurity, no more answering only to ourselves. The Lord is with you, with you in a very specific and personal way, not just watching from a distance, not just tagging along, but with you. Wherever you go, you and the Lord go together, and who do you suppose is leading the way?
Love’s pure light
Isaiah 61:1-11 (12/11/05)
Since human beings suffer in body as well as in spirit, a salvation that is genuine must heal bodies as well as spirits, and since human beings are the cause of much suffering in this world, their power to hurt must be broken. A salvation that is anything less is no more than a pacifier, a form of escape, an illusion.
Comfort my people
Isaiah 40:1-11 (12/4/05)
My dear friends, I need to tell you something. It is true that the heart of the gospel, the heart of the story of the people of God, the heart of the story of Advent is about a journey. But it is a journey God takes, not us! God moves, not us. We do not go, God comes … bringing comfort and peace to us and to the places where we are already.
Crying is allowed
Isaiah 64:1-12 (11/27/05)
What sort of Jesus do we remember? An appealing baby, or the maligned and rejected and bloodied savior of the world? A comforting friend, or a man who turns the world with its powers and pretenses on its ear? One who brings peace to human souls, or one who brings peace to all the world? One who can change human hearts, or one who can change human history? Or both?
In their footsteps
Exodus 19:1-8 (11/20/05)
When we peel back the layers one by one, all the layers of the things of our lives, things that come and go, things of which at any given moment we may have more or less, things which some of us may have and others of us may never have, when we finally peel away the last layer and reach the core
the core of what we have, the core of what we have to be thankful for
we are left with this:
“You, Lord, are all I have, and you give me all I need.”
Water from a rock
Exodus 17:1-7 (11/13/05)
We too are on a journey through the wilderness. Our path is sometimes difficult and perilous and daunting, but it leads to the promised land! We are not just wandering around, spinning our wheels. We are going somewhere! Our future does not hang in the balance. Our future rests in God’s hands, and God provides!
The lessons of the desert
Exodus 16:1-18 (11/6/05)
It is the hard times, the tough times, the crisis times that make us what we are and forge our characters. And it is equally true that times of comfort, ease, and plenty may leave us complacent and lazy, forgetful and distracted, spiritually out of shape …
Trapped!
Exodus 14:5-18 (10/30/05)
Don’t give up! Don’t resign yourself to things as they are! Don’t die before you die! Believe that God can take you through a sea of troubles, a river of frustration, a desert of failure, to the promised land!
Freedom isn’t free
Exodus 12:1-14 (10/23/05)
this was the price he paid for the freedom of the Hebrews
this was the price he paid for the freedom of the Hebrews
this was the price he
the Lord
paid for the freedom of the Hebrews!
The difference between miracle and magic
Exodus 7-10 (10/16/05)
The purpose of magic is to exert control, over nature and, ultimately, over other human beings, to bend and bind the will of others to serve the magician’s aims. The magician “casts a spell” to take away the free choice and free exercise of power of the targeted person or persons. The purpose of miracle, on the other hand, is not to take away choice, but to give it, not to deny responsibility, but to empower it.
All the trappings of success
Exodus 5:1-23 (10/2/05)
Saying “Yes” to God is no guarantee that your life will follow a smooth path and things will fall into place around you. In fact, it is more likely the opposite will be true
when you say “Yes” to God, the way will become more difficult and things around you will start to come apart.
It’s all you need to know
Exodus 3:1-15 (9/25/05)
Our job is not to quietly tend the sheep, to go about our own business, enjoying the happily disengaged life we have made for ourselves. Our job is not to take care of our members, to go about the business of the church, to enjoy the comfortable life we have made for ourselves in Waterloo and Cedar Falls. Our job is to go to Egypt … to go to the places where people are suffering, to set people free, to announce God’s salvation. Our job is mission.
The right one for the job
Exodus 1:1-25 (9/18/05)
Most of us are a lot like Moses in Midian, living out our lives in blissful obscurity. OK, maybe not always so blissful, but certainly in obscurity! We do not fancy ourselves to be great heroes. We are not liberators or prophets or revolutionaries. We do not defy empires. We do not challenge the powers that be. We do our best to stay out of trouble and avoid risk.
Blinded by fear
Exodus 1:1-22 (9/11/05)
Friends! You who are now members of First Congregational United Church of Christ!
This is the spirit in which our church was born! This is the spirit in which we must live! Fearing God, taking the side of the oppressed, refusing to be silent, serving as signs of God’s grace in our own time and place. Our church was founded by brave men and women determined to listen to the voice of God and to obey … and so must we!
Fair warning
Ezekiel 33:1-11 (9/4/05)
And don’t forget what God does ask you to do. God asks you to be a lookout. God asks you to give fair warning. So give fair warning! Do not be silent! Do not stand idly by while the forces of sin and death are having their way with humanity!
Faithfulness is its own reward
Jeremiah 15:10-21 (8/28/05)
If we do our duty and follow Jesus, this is what it will look like. We will forgive those who have wronged us, we will pray for the well-being of those who oppose us, we will work tirelessly for peace. We will welcome outcasts, we will set aside our own needs and desires, we will take risks and make sacrifices, we will give ourselves away. In other words, we will be going directly against the cultural mainstream, and lots of folks will be very unhappy with us.
The long and short of it
Isaiah 51:1-6 (8/21/05)
You really only have two choices – hope or despair. Which will you choose?
A different point of view
Genesis 45:1-15 (8/14/05)
Can you look at the events and circumstances of your own life and see not just the bad or good things that have happened to you, but see that there is indeed a “you” to which they have happened, a “you” capable of living with freedom and joy regardless of what befalls you? Can you look at the threads of your own history and see the grace and mercy of God at work, always at work? There are optimists; there are pessimists: and then, there are people of faith, people of faith who see things from a wholly different point of view.
Coming home
Psalm 90:1 (8/7/05)
Because home is not really this church or that church, this place or that place. Home is where God is: O Lord, you have always been our home! God is in all of these places. God has visited me in all of these places. And God visited me again in each of these places.
Leaving Town
Romans 8:1-11 (7/10/05)
My concern is with the integrity of the witness of our church, of our core witness to the unity Christ intends for his church. The great risk, the great tragedy, would be to let differences over this issue shatter our oneness.
There are well-meaning, Christ-loving, neighbor-loving, conscientious Christians on both sides of this issue! There are! And that is what makes this so difficult for me. If we cannot acknowledge that – that there are good people, faithful followers of Jesus, on both sides of this issue – then we are lost.
Like rain falling on the land
Psalm 72:1-8 (7/3/05)
So tomorrow, on July 4, I will be both proud and humble as I remember our nation’s birthday. I do love my noble but flawed homeland, and because I do, I pray for her future … As I pray for this nation, I pray not so much for its sake and its future. I pray for the sake and the future of the kingdom of God! I pray “Thy kingdom come!” … not “This kingdom endure!”
Happy Father’s Day
Matthew 10:34-39 (6/19/05)
We love our children best by loving Jesus best. We are not responsible for our children, or for anyone else. We are responsible to them. We are not owners, but stewards, with profound limits both on our power to make them into whatever they will become and on our right to take any credit for whatever they do become!
What you already have may be more than you realize
Romans 5:1 (6/12/05)
You have been put right with God, through faith. When you believe, when you utter a simple, Yes, when Jesus asks, Do you trust me? … you are right with God – period! Never place a period where God has placed a comma … How true! How true! But the reverse is equally true. Never place a comma where God has placed a period!
And they’ll know we are Christians by our …
Matthew 7:21-29 (5/29/05)
“What does make a true Christian?”
I cannot speak for you, but much of what is heralded in the media as representing the “Christian” point of view, I find rather disturbing and even downright shameful! So this is a question that has some urgency. Too often what is “Christian” is too narrowly defined, leaving out of the picture all sorts of people who call themselves by that name and hold rather different views and values.
I want to suggest a better definition, a broader definition, of what makes a true Christian. But, at the same time, I realize that I have to be careful too not to slap the title onto my own set of prejudices. So, let’s go to the source! How does Jesus identify his true followers, those who are fit for the Kingdom of heaven? They’ll know we are Christians by our …?
What are you going to do?
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (5/15/05)
You have spent an entire academic career, and much of your childhood, being judged on your performance. But as an adult, you need to realize that the truest measure of a person is not performance, but character.
So I don’t care so much about what you are going to do. I care very much about who you are going to be! Being an adult is about making choices for yourself and taking responsibility for them. Making choices about what you will do is the easy part! Making choices about who you will be is the work of a lifetime. And as you make those choices, the daily choices that shape your character, you will be tested and challenged all along the way. Choosing love is not easy.
Some things are not ours to know
Acts 1:6-9 (5/8/05)
There is a kind of faith that is based on having answers, on having an answer for every problem, an answer for every tough question. But I don’t find life or faith to be that easy. My faith doesn’t answer all my questions because my faith is in God, not in any religious system. God is not an answer book. God is a living being, a living person, complex and real and many-faceted, deep in wisdom, deep in feeling, supreme in power, and utterly beyond my ability to comprehend.
Got religion?
Acts 17:22-31 (5/1/05)
… faith in God has nothing to do with being religious. Faith in God has to do with a personal relationship made possible for us through the life and witness and death and resurrection of Jesus.
We don’t know where we’re going … but we know the way!
John 14:1-6 (4/24/05)
Sometimes I wonder if the church will survive, or if it does, if it will look anything like the church as we know it. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing on the crest of a ridge that is growing narrower and narrower, and that one day I will not be able to avoid falling off to one side or the other.
How do we go forward together – can we go forward together – when we are so deeply divided in mind and heart? What will become of the church in the next generation, or the generation after that? What will it look like? Will it be able to survive the powerful forces that are threatening to pull it apart and split it into distinct factions? I don’t know. We don’t know. We don’t know where we’re going … But we know the way!
The Lord is my goatherd
Isaiah 53:1-6 (4/17/05)
It’s tough to be a goat …
I should know … because I am one! I’m kind of homely, rough around the edges; there is nothing particularly attractive or glamorous about me. I do not always have very discriminating tastes. Sometimes I choose well, but other times I’ll get into something that isn’t really so good for me. There are many things out there that you can put into your mind or heart that are like spiritual junk food at best and many things that are positively dangerous for your soul!
I can be sassy, grumpy, cranky, stubborn, and I’m not sure that I am worthy of any special attention or regard. I know my place in the world. I know where I belong and where I don’t belong.
I know what it feels like to be a goat … and maybe some of you do, too. So what hope do we have? Does God care about goats, too?