Words of Welcome

Mark 5:21-43 Life is full of interruptions, especially in this age of the cell phone. But, even if you don't own one, people will still find you. The phone rings, usually at an inconvenient moment, or maybe someone stops by, and before you know it, the day is gone. Just one interruption after another. Although you intended to finish the job, things got the better of you. In the gospels Jesus is often interrupted. He’s going somewhere important, but then someone stops him and asks for help or advice. It can be frustrating, but Jesus understood that sometimes the needs of the moment are as important as what’s on the calendar. But this morning’s text isn’t just about interruptions, it’s also about faith and the risks involved in living our lives by faith. In this text we encounter two interrelated stories of healing. Both Jairus and the unnamed woman take a risk in coming to Jesus, but that is often the way it is with faith. And in taking this risk, they interrup

Mark 4:35-41 It’s Father’s Day, a day to remember and to honor fathers. As an added bonus, we get to eat pie after church. While our text this morning doesn’t speak of fathers, it does speak of a quality that fathers at their best instill into their children – that quality is trust. Unfortunately trust is easily broken and difficult to regain. But, without it, living, working, and worshiping as a community is impossible. Our text begins with Jesus’s decision to cross the Sea of Galilee and minister in the largely Gentile region called the Decapolis. Jesus had spent the day teaching, and now, quite tired, he fell asleep as the boats headed across the lake. He’s so tired that he doesn’t even wake up when a big storm hits, threatening to swamp the boats. While he sleeps, the disciples become terrified, believing that they’re going to die. And then, when they discover that Jesus is asleep, they wake him up with perturbed and frightened voices, asking him: “Don’t you care th

Isaiah 6:1-8 We love celebrities. We enjoy reading about them and watching the news reports. Oh, I know, you may not want to admit it, but we’re all at least a little bit interested in the “lifestyles of the rich and famous.” In fact, most of us secretly hope that someday we’ll run into a celebrity. Of course, if we do have such an encounter, it’s possible that we’d become a bit tongue tied or say or do the wrong thing. Now, I’ve had a couple of celebrity sightings and encounters in my life, but for the most part I’ve kept quiet – so as not to say the wrong thing. On one occasion I was sitting in the surgery waiting room at a Santa Barbara hospital with a family from the church. Looking out the window of the room I noticed John Cleese pacing the hall outside. If you don’t know who John Cleese is, he’s a British actor and comedian who has appeared in Monty Python movies and more recently as Q in some of the James Bond movies. We would soon learn that the reason he was there w