The man who did what was right
Matthew 1:18-25 (12/23/07)
Doing what is right is a wonderful thing. a courageous thing, a noble thing, but there is something more, something higher, something deeper, something mysterious and powerful and compelling calling you, inviting you, wanting you, wanting all of you.
No more fairy tales!
Isaiah 11:1-10 (12/9/07)
In the real world, peace is elusive, but when it does come, when Jesus brings it, it comes through transformation. Swords are beaten into plows, and spears into pruning knives … and wolves and sheep become friends.
In days to come
Isaiah 2:1-5 (12/2/07)
The Lord asked them to focus their attention, not on the dire circumstances staring them in the face, but on days to come. The Lord asked them to see what to them was invisible, to believe what to them was impossible, to live in a way that to them was unthinkable.
The only name that matters
Colossians 1:3-20 (11/25/07)
Unity will never happen based on common interests, common goals, shared values, merged organizations. Unity will happen only on the basis of a common faith, a common faith in Christ. Only Christ can tear down the walls that divide us, and we will only be one when we choose to step over the rubble of the walls of enmity Christ has already demolished!
The best is yet to come
Isaiah 65:17-25 (11/18/07)
We are at risk of a vision that is too narrow, a hunger that is too easily satisfied, a dream that is too small. We are at risk of complacency. It is good to say “Thank you” for the precious gifts God has given us, but God is not done giving! The best is yet to come! God’s promise is a new heaven and a new earth. There is much that is good and beautiful and satisfying about this earth and this heaven, about things as they are, but all this is just the appetizer! The best is yet to come!
Strangers, sojourners, and subversives
Matthew 5:1-10 (11/4/07)
Jesus was a stranger, in his own home! Jesus was a sojourner, in his own land! Jesus was a subversive, because that home and that land had been subverted from its intended purpose. He came as a stranger to claim it again for God. He came as a sojourner inviting us to go with him, inviting us to follow with him the path that leads us home!
Disturbing the peace
Matthew 5:9 (10/28/07)
Jesus says: “Blessed are the peace-makers.” It’s a creative, active thing
making peace, advocating for, bringing into being, the good that God intends. Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are the peace-keepers.” He said, “Blessed are the peace-makers.”
Exploring the frontiers of faith in Jesus
Matthew 5:1-8 (10/21/07)
I know about being poor in spirit. I know about mourning. I know about humility and being hungry and thirsty for righteousness. I even know about showing mercy. But I know nothing about being pure in heart!
Kyrie eleison
Matthew 5:1-7 (10/14/07)
If justice is blind, then mercy has its eyes wide open! Mercy always sees the person, that one particular person. Mercy is always personal. Mercy doesn’t just apply the rule, mercy makes the exception, because it sees the person. Mercy sees the person and is moved. Mercy sees the person and is moved to action. You don’t feel mercy. You do it!
Are you hungry?
Matthew 5:1-6 (10/07/07)
Are you hungry? Are you hungry for righteousness? Do you have a gnawing hunger, an aching hunger, a relentless thirst, to see justice done, to see goodness prevail, to see the coming of peace to the earth?
Leo Durocher was wrong
Matthew 5:1-5 (9/30/07)
… the earth, in all its beauty and in all its goodness and in all its bounty, is not something to be won, but something to be granted, as an inheritance, by its true owner.
Mourning is not a curse, but a blessing
Matthew 5:1-4 (9/23/07)
But mourning is a blessing too because it is an unmistakable sign that love goes on, living proof that a relationship still exists. He is not forgotten! He is not absent from your heart! She is not lost to you! She is still a part of you. You have not stopped loving him. It is not finished.
The answer will surprise you
Matthew 5:1-3 (9/16/07)
Being “poor in spirit” means the same things. It means having few spiritual resources. It means having to make a little faith go a long way. It means every day is hard, not easy. It means every day is a struggle just to hold on to your faith.
Blessed!
Matthew 5:3-16 (9/9/07)
You are like salt for the whole human race … You are like light for the whole world … But what if you dont feel ready for all of that?
Carry your candle
Matthew 5:14-16 (9/2/07)
You are not the light, but you are called to carry the light, and to let it shine!
Full of constant love
Psalm 103:1-8 (8/26/07)
Belief looks at the world, as it is, the complex tapestry of joy and disappointment, great pleasure and great pain, enchanting beauty and terrible suffering, and sees the signs of a God who is merciful and loving.
Are your ears burning?
Psalm 82 (8/19/07)
If our religion does not include compassion and advocacy for the poor, if it does not lead to a passion for justice and an intolerance for injustice, then our religion simply is not genuine.
Where hope belongs
Psalm 33:13-22 (8/12/07)
Fear distorts perception and clouds judgment. Fear destroys relationships and robs people of life. Fear chisels away at the pleasures and freedoms of life.
Remember!
Psalm 66 (7/8/07)
There are personal memories and there are collective memories, stories that we remember and pass on as a people, as a community, stories that we tell and retell because they must not be forgotten, because they are the stories that tell us who we are and to whom we belong and what we are for.
It is well
Psalm 16 (7/1/07)
It is a perilous path. It is a daunting message. Not everyone can hear it. Not everyone can bear it. It is a path that leads to joy; it is a path that is joy. But it is not an easy path, not a way for the faint of heart.
let it shine
Galatians 3:23-29 (6/24/07)
So happy anniversary, UCC! Thank you for your witness to the Christ who breaks down the walls that divide us. But I do not wish you a long life! I wish you an early death, when the dream of your founders, Jesus’ dream, that all may be one, will be realized.
You are my hiding place
Psalm 32:1-7 (6/17/07)
You can fill a jukebox with bad weather songs! Because that’s the way life is. That’s the way all too many of us feel all too often. I got the rainy day gone astray can’t find my way nothin’ to say hell to pay blues!
So what do you do? What do you do when it rains? What do you do when the storm hits?
Not what we expect
1 Corinthians 12:7 (6/3/07)
It’s not about them. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not just for them, for their benefit. It is for the good of all!
You shall have a song
Isaiah 30:29 (5/13/07)
There it is! There it is … the experience that is beyond words, that only words in music can begin to convey.
Peter had a vision
Acts 11:1-18 (5/6/07)
Tradition keeps us balanced like a fiddler on the roof, but do remember, it’s not a flat roof! We are delicately balanced between past and future, between tradition and change. Tradition that refuses to change, dies. And change for change’s sake, simply going with the cultural tide with no reference to tradition, is chaos. Either way you fall off the roof, it hurts!
The one beside you
John 21:20-23 (4/29/07)
You can’t miss that in the gospel of John. Jesus doesn’t found a church or start a school or draft an army. He meets people
he meets people!
one by one by one by one, touching them at the point of their most deeply personal hurts or wants or needs … and inviting them to follow.
On the beach
John 21:1-19 (4/22/07)
It is such a remarkable time of day. Everything seems new. Anything seems possible. Even when you’ve been up all night, the dawn marks the beginning of a new day, bringing with it a palpable sense of new possibility.
It doesn’t matter how you get in … just get in!
John 20:19-31 (4/15/07)
Jesus does not demand that Thomas come to faith on Jesus’ own terms, but gives Thomas the opportunity to come to faith on the terms Thomas himself has set. Amazing!
It’s personal
John 20:11-16 (4/8/07)
The resurrection of Jesus was no public spectacle. It was not staged for maximum media exposure. Jesus did not appear before Pilate or the Sanhedrin or show himself to the crowds gathered in and around the Temple. Jesus did not go to Rome or set out on a countrywide tour, meeting and greeting and announcing himself as the Resurrected One. After he was raised from death, he spent just a very short time among just a very few of his closest friends, and then he was gone and seen no more.
Jesus wept
John 11:17-37 (3/25/07)
For Jesus, genuine faith and genuine grief are not mutually exclusive … nor for us. In fact, I believe that as our own faith grows deeper and stronger, two things will be equally true: 1) we will fear death less, and; 2) we will grieve death more!
No matter who you are
John 8:2-11 (3/18/07)
The ones who would have condemned her cannot, because they are not without sin, and the one who is without sin, the one who could have condemned her, will not. So there she stands, in the presence of God, given back her life, given back her voice, turned back by Jesus from pawn into person: “Go. Go back to your life, but do not sin again.”
Open our eyes, Lord
John 9:1-41 (3/11/07)
To see each other – not just in two dimensions, as part of the scenery of our lives, props to pass by or push aside or climb over or simply ignore on our way to wherever it is we want to go, allies to recruit or threats to eliminate – but to see each other, really see each other, as whole persons, as people with feelings and pain and desire and humanity, as children of God, too, endowed with all the beauty and all the unimpeachable value of the children of God …
The faces of unbelief
John 7 (3/4/07)
Sometimes we may be confused about Jesus’ mission. Sometimes we may even forget that it is Jesus’ mission, not ours! Sometimes we may aim to be well-known, to be successful, to enlarge our audience, instead of aiming where Jesus aims, to make God known.
Stuck
John 5:1-18 (2/11/07)
Getting well, being well, getting unstuck, will require humility and courage. It will take humility to let Jesus in, to let Jesus take charge, to let Jesus do it. And it will take courage to be the new person Jesus will make of you! It will take courage to let go of old habits, of old ways of thinking, of old security blankets. It will take courage to see things in a new light, to embrace a new way of doing and a new way of being. It is easier, far easier, to stay stuck!
If you knew …
John 4:1-30 (2/4/07)
There they are, two human beings in need of refreshment, each having the power and the means to refresh the other, but she is trapped, trapped and blinded by the expectations and limitations her culture, his culture, her understanding, her experience, have embedded into her psyche.
John 3:16
John 3:1-21 (1/28/07)
Nicodemus is restless, like all of us are restless. We are always restless, always unsatisfied, always looking for something more. We live, we win, we lose, we gain, we learn, we exist, we experience, we grow, but still, we are restless. Still we long for something more, something we do not yet have, something we have not yet found.
Saving the best for last
John 2:1-12 (1/21/07)
Think of what Jesus did with ordinary water. Think of what Jesus made of ordinary water – the finest of wines! Think of what Jesus can do with you!
He has made him known
John 1:1-18 (1/14/07)
Being a Christian is, first and foremost, about knowing God. Not just knowing something about a God other people talk about, but knowing God. Not just believing in God in a general sense, believing in the idea of “God,” but knowing God. Not just acknowledging that there must be Someone out there watching over you, but knowing God!
In the beginning
John 1:1-5 (1/7/07)
This is what God is, not an amorphous, impersonal force, but the Word: Something, Someone, who relates, who communicates, who knows; Something, Someone with whom we can relate, with whom we can communicate, whom we can know.