Words of Welcome

Galatians 5:1, 13-15 We’ve reached the midpoint of this seven-week sermon series.  My hope is that I can connect our founding visions with our present and future ministry. During my sabbatical I thought a lot about the links between past and present.  Although I believe that we need to keep focused on where God is leading us, I also believe that we can find clues to where God is leading in the past. To put it in biological terms, during my sabbatical I did a bit of research into the DNA of this congregation and my own spiritual heritage. My sense is that our spiritual DNA will help us find our place in the present and in the future.     Although I could have started with the creation story, I think that the best place to start in exploring our spiritual DNA is with the covenant that God made with Abraham and Sarah.  In that covenant God promised that through their descendants, the nations would be blessed.  This founding vision has been meditated t...

Genesis 45:1-15 From what I hear family reunions can be a lot of fun.  There’s food, and games, and conversation.  You get to catch up on the latest gossip and tell stories about long-ago exploits.  For some of you this is an annual occurrence.  I can’t speak with any authority on such matters because our family is small and scattered, and we just don’t have such things.  But I trust that the stories I hear are true! Of course, family reunions can also be uncomfortable and awkward. There might be a family feud going on or someone may have been hurt by what someone has said or done.  There may be empty seats, left by those who felt excluded from the family.  While some family members receive the invitation with eagerness and joy, others receive it with dread and wish they could find a way to skip the event.    If modern families can be dysfunctional, the biblical families weren’t any better off.   I chuckle when I hear...

Romans 8:26-39 On a hot and humid evening this past week, as we watched the Tigers play the Oakland A’s, John Balogh asked me whether I would be preaching a baseball-themed sermon?  Being a lifelong baseball fan,  I couldn’t let a request like that get away, and so I began thinking about how baseball might fit with this morning’s sermon theme.       In Romans 8 Paul poses a question:  “If God is for us, then who can be against us?”   Now, if you’re a Tiger’s fan, could you see God’s hand at work during the game Tuesday evening?  Because they won big, surely God must be on the side of the Tigers!   Of course, not everyone saw things this way, because two members of our group wore caps of the then first place Cleveland Indians.   And while I donned a Tiger’s hat and rooted them on as they played the hapless Oakland A’s, just few weeks earlier I wore a San Francisco Giants cap to the Giants-Tigers game and rooted for my boyhood ...