Words of Welcome

Luke 9:57-62; Psalm 82 Today is Transfiguration Sunday, a day when we remember God’s mountaintop affirmation of Jesus’ ministry.  It is a moment in Jesus’ life, when he receives the  mantle of Moses the Lawgiver and Elijah the Prophet.  As was true at Jesus’ baptism, God points to Jesus and says – that’s my child, the one who reveals my nature and purposes.   This is also the beginning of our Week of Compassion emphasis, which invites us to contribute to the welfare of those in need both in the United States and around the world.  Last year, the Motown Mission project at Northwestern Christian Church received a grant from Week of Compassion that enabled the work teams to renovate the church so it can be of greater service to the neighborhood. Today is also, at least for us, Economic Justice Sunday.  It’s not on the liturgical calendar, but it is an emphasis of the Metropolitan Coalition of Congregations . This Coalition, which Luke Allen will talk more about in a mo

Psalm 30 There was a time when many churches frowned upon dancing.  That’s because they considered it too sensual.  This was especially true of mixed dancing, which might lead to promiscuity. That’s why we didn’t have dances at my college.  We had “stand up concerts.”  Although they looked a lot like dances, we could pretend they weren’t.  After I graduated, things loosened up, but there was this concern that people might think these Christian college students were up to no good!   Now, as for me and dancing, you probably won’t catch me out on the dance floor very often.  It’s not a theological thing.  But, as Cheryl will attest, I can’t dance!  My feet and my arms and my body will not move with the music in an appropriate fashion.      Although Psalm 30 speaks of God taking us from mourning to dancing, the Psalmist isn’t referring to a Valentine’s Dance.  Instead, the Psalmist is calling for us to celebrate a movement from sadness to joy.  Ours is an embodied fait

1 Corinthians 9:16-23 Rene Descartes declared these famous words – in Latin of course – Cogito ergo sum .   That is, “I think, therefore I am.”   According to this famous philosopher the ability to reason and to think defined human identity.  Many people, especially today, would find his definition rather limited, because it seems to exclude a lot that makes us who we are.     But who are you?  What makes you, you?    I can’t answer this question for you, but I can say something about my own identity.   I do like to think, but I’m more than my ability to reason.   I am a middle-aged, well-educated, middle-class European-American male, who has been happily married for going on twenty-nine years and who is a father of one adult child who also happens present in the room.  My maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Holland, while ancestors on my father’s side came to Massachusetts’s Bay Colony not long after its establishment.  I’m a Christian, a pastor, a historian, and