Words of Welcome

  Matthew 22:15-22 April 15th is one of the least popular days of the year. It’s no secret why this is true since April 15th is tax day. Although it’s said that paying taxes, along with death, is one of the two constants in life, no one likes paying taxes. This is especially true when the taxing authority belongs to an oppressive occupying power that uses your tax dollars to pay the troops that impose the will of the occupiers on you. That was, of course, the case for folks living under Roman rule in first-century Palestine. While we may not live under a foreign occupying power, it often feels like our tax dollars are used to support policies that we either oppose, or they don’t address our concerns.    This morning Matthew takes us to the Temple in Jerusalem during Holy Week. We find Jesus teaching the crowds who gathered to hear him speak. While the common people, many of whom had welcomed him into Jerusalem just a day or so earlier, were attracted to his message, n...

  Exodus 32:1-14 Long road trips can be challenging for children, who easily get impatient. From the back seat, parents hear a plaintive cry: “Are we there yet?” The people of Israel may have had similar feelings as they wandered in the Wilderness of Sinai. Why did it take so long? Then, when they reached Mt. Sinai, Moses disappeared during a supposed visit with God on the mountaintop. So, when he didn’t return in a timely manner, they panicked and asked Aaron to create gods who might lead them out of the wilderness. Because they grew impatient, fearing they had been abandoned by Moses and his God, the people set aside their covenant with God, which included the command not to have other gods besides Yahweh or to make idols for themselves ( Ex. 20:1-4 ). Instead, they decided to adopt replacement gods who might be more responsive to their concerns. This is a temptation that is common to humanity.   When the people asked Aaron for new replacement gods, they asked for...

  Matthew 21:33-46 I think it’s hard for most of us to think of Jesus being a troublemaker. Even though I envision Jesus being gracious, loving, and welcoming, in the Gospels he was always stirring up trouble. So, it’s no surprise that the political and the religious leaders got anxious when Jesus came to town for Passover Week.  Jesus wasn’t and isn’t the only trouble-making religious leader. Paul, Francis of Assisi, and Martin Luther all had opponents. I even hear that some folks in the Catholic Church aren’t big fans of Pope Leo. People tend not to like preachers who step on their toes, especially if they are political or religious leaders.  Our reading from the Gospel of Matthew places Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple the day after he entered Jerusalem in triumph and then cleansed the Temple. These actions had put the religious and political leaders on edge. So, it’s not surprising that a group of religious leaders challenged Jesus authority to disrupt life in the ...

    Matthew 18:21-35 This past Friday, the nation observed the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attacks of 9-11. It’s likely that if you are over forty, you will remember, perhaps vividly, where you were when you first heard the news. I remember that day very clearly. I was living on the West Coast in Santa Barbara. Like most Tuesday mornings, I joined three men from the church for breakfast at a restaurant just around the corner from the parsonage. When I returned to the house before heading next door to the office, I checked the news on the TV just as a plane hit the second Twin Tower in New York. I remember standing there in shock. Later that morning, my United Methodist colleague stopped by the office. Since I was president of the local interfaith clergy association, LLoyd wanted to discuss how the faith community could respond to this tragedy. Lloyd offered his church as the site for a service on the Sunday evening following. Then Lloyd and I began reaching out to our co...

Matthew 14:22-33 I’m not very adept at walking on water. While I did try to water ski once upon a time, it didn’t go very well. In fact, not only didn’t I get up on the skis, since I seemed unable or unwilling to let go of the rope, I bounced along the surface of the lake as the boat headed down the lake. When the boat finally stopped, and my friends pulled me into the boat, I was covered with bits of the green algae that fill Klamath Lake. Despite my inability to water ski, let alone walk on water, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was very adept at walking on water. He could even walk on water during the middle of the storm.  Our reading this morning from Matthew 14 picks up the story of Jesus’ Galilean ministry immediately after he had fed five thousand people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish ( Matt. 14:13-21 ).  After Jesus put the disciples in a boat and sent them on their way across the Sea of Galilee, he dismissed the crowd. Then, he headed to...

  Romans 9:1-5 When you have something important to share that you think is life-changing, you hope people will respond positively. It doesn’t matter if you’re the president, governor, mayor, or, in my case, a preacher. It’s frustrating when people don’t respond the way you hope. So, I can feel Paul’s frustration, which he shares with his readers in the opening verses of Romans 9.   Paul closed the previous chapter with a heartfelt declaration, telling the Roman church that he was “convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” ( Rom. 8:38-39 ). Now, as we turn the page to chapter 9, we find Paul talking about the grief he felt for his fellow Jews who rejected his message about Jesus. In chapters nine through eleven, Paul addresses the failure of the Jewish people to receiv...

  Romans 8:12-25 This past week we experienced a heat dome that raised temperatures to more than 100 degrees, followed by a blast of the worst air in the world due to Canadian forest fires. Of course, a power outage led to the cancellation of the service on July 5th. In other words, we haven’t been experiencing the most pleasant weather of late.  I’m not sure if Paul had weather-related issues in mind when he wrote here in Romans 8 about the groaning of creation, but it does seem that creation has been groaning because the spirit of death and corruption is permeating creation.  Paul tells us that creation groans because it is waiting to be set free from its bondage to decay. You might say, that Creation is waiting for its redemption so it can start over from the beginning. According to Genesis 1 when God set about creating the universe, God declared that each element of creation was good, including God’s human creation. Unfortunately, things began to go bad in chap...