Words of Welcome

Mark 10:2-16 We are broken people who live in a broken world. That’s not a message we like to hear, but it’s true. This message is revealed in the opening chapters of Genesis. While things start okay, things go downhill after Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. After their exile from the garden, one of their sons, Cain, kills his brother Abel because God prefers Abel’s gift over Cain’s. Things get so bad that God, in frustration, decides to send a flood and start over with Noah. But even then, things don’t get much better. That’s just the way things are. Noah and his descendants were just as broken as his ancestors. The problem of brokenness remains part of our reality to this day.   We see this brokenness revealed in our relationships as families, communities, nation, and the world. It’s like a virus that eats away at our inner being. Every aspect of human life seems to be vulnerable to this malignancy of the human spirit. This includes the most intimate of human rela...

  Pharaoh's Daughter Finding Baby Moses Konstantin Flavitsky, 1855 Exodus 1:8-2:10 When God appeared to Abraham in Haran, God asked him to pick up and move to an undisclosed location. In exchange for heading out on this adventure, God promised to make his descendants a blessing to the nations ( Gen. 12:1-9 ). As the story goes in Genesis, Abraham and three generations of his descendants carried that promise forward. Due to famine and the providential placement of Jacob’s son Joseph in a position of power, Jacob’s family ended up in Egypt where Joseph was Prime Minister. Although Joseph ended up in Egypt because of some family dysfunction, his presence in Egypt brought blessings to his family and to the nations.  When we turn from Genesis to Exodus, Abraham’s descendants still reside in Egypt. In fact, it’s four hundred years later and the family has been fruitful and multiplied. Their fortunes were about to change because a Pharaoh came to the throne of Egypt who knew not ...

  Luke 21:25-36 It’s Thanksgiving Weekend and the First Sunday of Advent. As you can see, the sanctuary is ready for our celebration of Advent and Christmas. The beautiful new blue cloth on the table says it well: “O Come Emmanuel.” With this invitation to Emmanuel, we can ready ourselves to welcome the one who brings God’s presence into our midst. We opened worship singing “Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free.” This prayer has two meanings. First of all, it speaks to the messianic hopes and dreams that helped define Jesus’ earthly ministry. But it also speaks to our future hopes and dreams, as we pray that God would free us from our fears and sins so we might find our rest, as Augustine suggested in God’s presence.  The word we hear from the Gospel of Luke this morning has an apocalyptic ring to it. It’s as if Robot, from Lost in Space, is saying to us: “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!” Yes, keep your eyes and ears on the alert for signs that the ...

  Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 The Covenant-making God invited Abraham and his family to take a journey to an unknown land. God promised to bless Abraham, make his name great, and bless the nations through him and his descendants. God made this promise even though Abraham and Sarah were rather old and still didn’t have any children of their own ( Gen. 12:1-4 ).  Abraham’s story is a complicated one. It almost seems like a soap opera at times, but Abraham set out on the journey and God remained present throughout all the twists and turns of this journey. So, when Abram turned ninety-nine years old, God said to Abraham: “I am God Almighty, walk before me, and be blameless.” That is, “Live as if you were always in my presence.” [ Goldingay, Genesi s, 277 ]. When God made a covenant with Abram in Genesis 17, God promised to make his descendants “exceedingly numerous.” To symbolize this promise, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “ancestor of a multitude.” God also promi...

Genesis 12:1-4 The word “bless” is found in some form nearly 600 times in the New Revised Standard Version. When I looked up the words we translate bless, blessed, and blessing in my Bible dictionary, I discovered that the Hebrew words speak of health, longevity, and fertility. I also discovered that it can be translated as flourishing. So, if you say “I’m blessed,” or “what a blessing,” is this what you mean?  When Bruce Barkhauer was with us, he spoke of a "thread of hope" running through Scripture, linking creation to new creation. I believe that there is also a "thread of blessing" running through scripture that connects the call of Abram to Jesus, and through Jesus we are connected to the realm of God.  This morning we heard God call Abram to leave his homeland and migrate to a new land so that God could make him and his descendants a great nation so that all the families of the earth would be blessed in him or because of him. All he had to do...

Mark 10:17-31 Van Gogh - Wheat Fields with Reapers (Toledo Museum of Art) How do you measure what matters most? That is, how do you determine the  value of something, especially if you’re going to make an investment? If you’ve ever watched  Antique Road Show  or  American Pickers , you know that everything has a price. Go to an art museum like Cheryl and I did last weekend, and you’ll see pieces of art that are all considered valuable. But what makes art valuable? Is it not what a person is willing to spend? What goes for art goes for baseball cards. Consider the 1910 Honus Wagner card. It recently sold for more than two million dollars. That’s a lot of money for a piece of cardboard with a picture on it. I have a baseball card collection, but none of my cards are worth that much. Apparently age, rarity, and condition, along with personal interest can give a piece of cardboard with a picture on it a premium value. 

Acts 1:6-11 Every episode of  Star Trek: The Original Series  – begins with Captain Kirk narrating the mission statement of the starship Enterprise: Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. When  Star Trek: The Next Generation  appeared twenty years later, the producers made a few changes to the statement. Instead of five years, the new crew was embarking on a  “continuing mission,” and they replaced the words “no man” with “no one.” But, they still had a mission – to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and boldly go to new places. Although we’re not going into space, the church does have a “continuing mission” to “boldly go where no one has gone before.”  The words I want to emphasize here are “continuing” and “boldly.”  Our mission is rooted in a miss...

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Before leaving on my sabbatical, I preached a sermon from Genesis 12 entitled “Reclaiming a Founding Vision.”   In  Genesis 12  God covenants with Abraham and Sarah, promising to bless the nations through their descendants. That is, I believe, our founding vision.  In Christ we become children of Abraham so that we might be a blessing to the nations.   Sometimes we get so caught up in the business of religion that we forget our calling.  Fortunately, God remains faithful to this covenant, and has a way of rekindling that vision  in our hearts.  The title of that sermon, “Reclaiming a Founding Vision” served as theme of my sabbatical.  Since pastors are tempted to get focused on the mechanics of the institution rather than the vision that guides us a congregation, the sabbatical provided me the opportunity to remember and reclaim that vision for my life, so that I can lead this congregation in fulfilling our calli...

Genesis 12:1-9 Back in the 1970s millions of Americans watched a family’s story unfold in a TV mini-series that went by the title Roots .  Maybe you watched it.  It told the story of a young African man who was taken into slavery by the name of Kunte Kinte and his descendants.  It was and remains a powerful story, one that encouraged many other families to trace their own family origins.  After that people seemed to really get into their genealogies.  I know that some of you are hard at work tracing your own family histories.  Perhaps your interest in your roots was inspired by Alex Haley’s family history.   In just two weeks, I’ll be heading out on my three-month sabbatical.  Back when we were working on a grant proposal to fund the sabbatical I had to come up with a theme.  So,  I chose the theme – “Reclaiming a Founding Vision.”  Over the past year, even after we didn’t get the grant, I’ve been reworking th...

Matthew 5:1-12 This morning we begin a rather lengthy journey through one of the most powerful sections of Scripture. Although there will be a few breaks in this journey, we will focus our attention, between now and Palm Sunday, on the Sermon on the Mount. In the previous chapter of Matthew, Jesus calls to himself a group of disciples from among the many who came to hear him proclaim the message of the kingdom and bring healing to the body and spirit, giving them a new identity and purpose. Now, Jesus draws to himself this small group so he can teach them what it means to live in God’s realm. As he takes them with him to the mountain, he teaches them that God’s realm is very different in tone and purpose from human realms and empires. It doesn’t matter if these worldly governments are limited or big, democratic or autocratic, they are not the same as God’s realm, and if they are to follow Jesus, then they must give their complete allegiance to God’s reign. And, as Warren Carter point...