Sermons 2009

Sophia
Luke 2:39-52 (12/27/2009)

You find God on the path that is, always and only on the path that is. God is never found on the path that might have been! You cannot miss God. You cannot lose God. Nothing can befall you by choice or by happenstance that moves you out of God’s way. God does not exist – God cannot exist – in what if, only in what is.

Joy is a choice
Luke 1:39-45 (12/20/2009)

She was happy, because she believed that the Lord’s message to her would come true. Because she believed she could embrace her life as it was, with all its burdens of uncertainty and mystery and demand and difficulty. She was happy because she chose to embrace her life as it was, not to begrudge it, not to regret it, not to wish her life was something different than what it was, not to wish God has chosen someone else.

She was happy because she chose it. Joy is a choice.

The other side of the manger
Luke 3:7-18 (12/13/09)

May it be that justice is the other side of love and love the other side of justice? May it be that love itself is not merely tender and mild, but strong and pushy and relentless, never finished, never backing down, until it has won the well-being of the beloved? This is a love that doesn’t just coddle and comfort you. This is a love that changes your life. This is a love that transforms the world!

If I had a hammer
Luke 3:1-6 (12/6/09)

Peace is not a wish, it is a construction project! Peace on earth is both a gift and a mandate. Making peace is hard work, our work, our part in getting ready.

Stand up!
Luke 21:25-28 (11/29/09)

What happens when we find ourselves overwhelmed by a problem, a threat, that exhausts all our resources and thwarts all our best efforts? What happens when our carefully-managed lives begin to unravel, when the ground itself seems to shift beneath our feet, when normal just isn’t normal anymore? What do we have left then?

A dangerous truth
John 18:33-37 (11/22/09)

Jesus knows it’s not about power, but about truth. It’s not his ambition, but his truth-telling that poses a threat. Truth itself is dangerous. Jesus got himself in trouble, Jesus got himself killed, for speaking the truth.

What is it?
Mark 13:1-8 (11/15/09)

And the Bible is a testament, a visible sign of the invisible God, an embodiment of God’s voice, a revelation of God’s will, a book that tells from beginning to end, in all its many forms – poem and song and parable and law, letters and prophecies and stories and sermons, written over a period of fifteen centuries – a book that tells, in all its diversity, the story of the relentless grace of God.

Not far
Mark 12:28-34 (11/1/09)

We are not saints, just Christians, just ordinary, flawed, weak, doubting, sinful human beings, choosing to cast our lot with Jesus, to go where he is going, to go with him and with all those who go with him.

Bart
Mark 10:46-52 (10/25/09)

Jesus is not a magician. He is a savior. He is not a genie, granting whatever wish or whim we may have. He is the Son of God, bringing the power of God’s grace to bear in our lives so we may fully be … what God has made us to be.

You don’t know what you are asking for
Mark 10:35-45 (10/18/09)

What is the gospel saying to the church? It’s hard to miss! If the church is doing what everybody else is doing – putting a premium on sophistication and wealth and reputation – then it has lost its way! Our way is a different way. Our way is Christ’s way.

You need only one thing
Mark 10:17-31 (10/11/09)

What is the one thing that is keeping you from being entirely earnest about eternal life? What is the one thing that keeps you from spreading your wings and taking off? What is the one thing that drags you down and overshadows you with gloom because you can’t – won’t – let go?

I will sing to the Lord
Psalm 104:24-34 (5/31/09)

Sometimes words alone are not enough. Sometimes words alone don’t quite do justice to the depths and heights of what we feel. Sometimes words simply cannot say what we have to say. Sometimes you just have to sing!

Like a tree
Psalm 1 (5/24/09)

What more could I want for my children and my grandchildren – and for you – than this? That you grow strong and beautiful, that you live long and well, that you persevere through good times and bad, that you live in harmony with your neighbors and with the earth, that you take in the best of what they have to offer and give back the best you have to offer, that you stand tall and proud as a living emblem of the extraordinary artistry of God?

America’s original sin
John 15:1-10 (5/10/09)

We prize our independence and we fear dependence on others. We want to be self-sufficient and we hate having to rely on anybody else. We admire people who are ready and willing to make the tough decisions and to take decisive action all on their own. In our culture, asking for help is a sign of weakness. Needing help is a reason for shame.

I will not be afraid
Psalm 23 (5/3/09)

Almost surely, we will face economic uncertainty,
and bodies that grow old and tired, and difficult choices.
Almost surely, we will have enemies, and lonely times,
and dark, forbidding times.
But surely
not almost surely, but surely!
surely, the Lord, our shepherd,

will protect and provide and strengthen and guide
and bless us and remain with us … always!

Do you believe in ghosts?
Luke 24:36-48 (4/26/09)

It is easier for us to believe in ghosts, to believe in heaven, than it is to believe in resurrection, to believe that a flesh and bone Jesus lives, to believe that God is in the business of bringing dead things to life … here and now!

Blessing and honor, glory and power
Revelation 5:1-14 (4/19/09)

But of all the things for which we rightly bear shame, this to me is the most shameful … that we can hear the story – this astonishing, wonderful, most glorious story of the God who gives us life, who calls us and loves us and comes to us and reconciles us and makes us promises of extraordinary blessing – that we can hear this story and say, “Oh …”

All good things must come to an end?
Mark 16:1-8 (4/12/09)

All good things must come to an end. The moment is celebrated, we taste its sweetness, and then it slips away, into the past, out of our reach, held fast only in memory …

No end!
2 Corinthians 4:13-18 (4/12/09)

Eternal life. Not just life after death, but eternal life. No throwaway life, but life that matters. Not life that flames out, but life that burns brightly. Not life that ebbs away, slowly or quickly, but life that is constantly renewed and energized. Not life that is doomed, but life that is blessed. Not life that leads to a dead end, but life that leads … to life.

Your presence in trial and rejoicing
Mark 11:1-10, Mark 14:43-65 (4/5/09)

God is there, with us, present to us, in every moment …

Profiles in courage
John 12:20-33 (3/29/09)

You never need to go looking for a challenge. It will always find you. Courage is facing the challenge, embracing life as it comes, choosing to live in it as it is, but choosing to do with it what you are meant to do, what you are called to do. Courage is living your life instead of letting it live you.

The blessings of a good conscience
Ephesians 2:1-10 (3/22/09)

A good conscience is a blessing when it is our teacher, but a curse when it is our judge, and God does not want us to be cursed!

The call and the promise
2 Peter 1:1-11 (3/15/09)

It’s like the question we discussed in Wednesday night Bible study this week: is living the Christian life hard or easy? To which we decided the answer is … yes!

Ashamed?
Mark 8:31-38 (3/8/09)

“What I thought I wanted, what I got instead,
leaves me broken … and grateful.”

Embraced by the mystery
Mark 1:9-15 (3/1/09)

In baptism and communion we are somehow embraced by the mystery of Christ’s presence itself, Christ’s own presence with us. We don’t just talk about meeting him, or share signs that remind us of him. We do meet him! It is a mystery how it may be so, but at the moment of baptism and in the act of eating and drinking, we are embraced by that mystery.

Who is on the Lord’s side?
Mark 5:1-20 (2/22/09)

We cannot proclaim the gospel without resisting evil. It’s like the two great commandments: “Love the Lord God with all your heart and mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” They go together. They must go together. If you say you love God, but do not love your neighbor, you prove yourself a liar. In the same way, if you proclaim good news, but stand by idly in the face of injustice or poverty or discrimination or cruelty or dishonesty, your words are empty and worthless and powerless.

Go tell it!
Mark 1:40-45 (2/15/09)

We are called to tell it, not to sell it.

Servants
Mark 1:29-31 (2/8/09)

You are saints, not heroes. Not heroes because you are only doing what you have been called to do. Once you are called into God’s church, being a servant, serving others, is business as usual! It’s nothing extraordinary, nothing for which to be especially commended. It just comes with the territory!

The cost and the joy
1 Corinthians 8:1-13 (2/1/09)

Discipleship is not about rights and privileges and freedoms, not about what we know, what we can do, what we are capable of. It’s not about getting there, finding the way, completing the job, climbing the mountain, on our own. We do it together. We go together. We arrive together … or not at all!

You call us into your church
Mark 1:14-20 (1/25/09)

I’m telling you: it’s a lot easier to profess love for the suffering child on the television screen, than do something tangible to help the suffering child across town.

It’s a lot easier to march for peace, than to make peace with a cantankerous neighbor.

It’s a lot easier to think of yourself as a generally loving person, than to love that obnoxious person who sits in the pew behind you.

It’s a lot easier to dream about the church as it might be, than to live as a dedicated member of the church as it is.

What is the glue?
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 (1/18/09)

We don’t do it! The Holy Spirit does it! It’s not about building bridges, but about crossing over the bridges that are already there. We don’t have to try to make unity among believers, we just have to live the unity that is already a reality. So what is required of us is not so much ethical commitment, but spiritual courage, courage that allows us to live in this new reality, rather than resist it.

The Spirit of God is moving
Genesis 1:1-5 (1/11/09)

We may ignore God. We cannot ignore Jesus, but we may choose to turn away, to go our own way. But we may neither ignore nor turn away from the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is there, pressing on us, blowing on us, moving in on us. This is the God we have to deal with. The only other recourse we have is to resist, to resist the power of the Spirit of God in our lives.