Words of Welcome

  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...

  Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 The Psalmist invites us to sing God’s praises  because we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Not only is God the creator of the universe, but God has formed our inward parts and knit us together in our mother’s womb. That means we matter to God.  The first creation account reveals that we are created in God’s image. Then in the second creation account, in Genesis 2, it’s revealed that God’s hands got dirty when God created the first human. Jeremiah reinforces that message when he describes God’s relationship to Israel in terms of God the potter. While Jeremiah uses that image to speak of God’s judgment on Israel, we can also read into that imagery a sense of God’s intimate relationship with creation. So, it appears that God isn’t concerned about dirty hands! ( Jer., 18:1-11 ) All of this suggests that life is sacred. Just as the Psalmist speaks of God’s intimate relationship with God’s creation, the prologue to John’s Gospel reinforces...

Job 38:1-7, 34-41 Job wanted his day in court because, if, as his friends alleged, his own sins caused him to suffer, then he wanted to see the evidence. Since Job wouldn’t admit to anything, one of his so-called friends, a man named Elihu, decided to take a different approach. Rather than blame Job, Elihu told Job to quit questioning God because God is too busy and important to bother with Job and his problems. After all, Job should consider the “wondrous works of God.” Just look around at creation because when you take in the grandeur of creation, you’ll realize how small you really are in the grand scheme of things. (Job 37:14, 23 ).   I get Elihu’s point about the wonder of the creation. Cheryl and I recently visited the Upper Peninsula. We took a boat trip out along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and took in Tahquamenon Falls, among other points of interest. Scenes like this produce a sense of awe at the wondrous works of God and you realize how big the universe...

Adam and Eve in the Garden - Creation - Songea Cathedral, Tanzania Genesis 2:18-24 The film, Cast Away , is a modern-day retelling of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe . In the film, a FedEx plane goes down over the South Pacific and Chuck Noland, who is a FedEx executive played by Tom Hanks, is the only survivor. After he survives the crash, Noland is determined to live long enough to get rescued. He survives his ordeal in part because he develops a friendship with a volleyball with a face he drew with his own blood. Since the ball was produced by the Wilson sporting goods company, he named the ball Wilson. This ball becomes Noland’s conversation partner and companion. The film came out in 2000 so I don’t think I need to worry about spoilers. You’ll be glad to know that the film ends on a happy note. Noland tried for months to get the attention of passing ships and planes, but no one came to rescue him. So Chuck built a raft, loaded all the packages he had saved from the wreckage of ...

  Reminder, by Mike Moyers Genesis 9:8-17 We serve a covenant-making God. As we journey through Lent, we will encounter some of the covenants present in the Old Testament. We’ll reflect on what these covenants say to us as a congregation and as individuals.  We begin this morning with a unilateral covenant that God makes with all creation. It speaks of God’s faithfulness but it doesn’t impose any specific requirements on us. This one applies to God and God alone, but this covenant offers us a word of hope. That is because it guarantees God’s faithfulness to the covenant. While this covenant doesn’t require anything of us, if we take the word we hear this morning to heart, perhaps we can embody its message in our own relationships. This first covenant provides the foundation for every other covenant, including the one that binds us together as a church. When the Disciples of Christ restructured itself as a denomination in the 1960s, the denomination chose the biblical con...

Mount Shasta from the north Psalm 104:24-34 “O Lord, how manifold are your works!” Through God’s Wisdom, “all things bright and beautiful” are being created, and all God’s creatures depend on God’s Spirit for sustenance. This is true also for the new creation in Christ. So, with the Psalmist “I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.” The connection between the 104th Psalm and Pentecost is subtle, but the Psalm’s witness to the work of the Spirit is there. It’s there in the references to God’s Wisdom and God’s life-giving breath. It’s there in the presence of the Spirit through whom God renews “the face of the ground.” The Spirit comes not only on the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit’s presence gave life to the church, but the Spirit has been present since the beginning of creation. We hear this word about the renewing presence of the Spirit during a pandemic and while the nation is faced with the question of wha...

Genesis 1:1-2:4 In the beginning, when God started creating things, the earth was nothing more than a dark formless void. While a wind from God blew across the waters, God began to speak. With each word, the earth began to emerge in all its complexity. God first called for the lights to turn on. From there, things proceeded step by step until the earth was ready to receive fish, birds, and the animals, including cattle.  God said to this menagerie: “be fruitful and multiply.” When everything was in place, God said, let’s create humankind in our image. So God did just that and entrusted this good earth to humankind’s stewardship. Then God rested. Now, Genesis doesn’t provide us with a scientific statement as to how things came into existence. What it gives us is a liturgy that celebrates the beauty of creation and invites us to worship the creator.  Therefore, “Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise!” Although this litany suggests th...

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31  In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , Indy joined his father, Henry Jones, Sr., on a quest to find the Holy Grail. Just like with Raiders of the Lost Ark, they’re in a race against forces aligned with Adolph Hitler. If you know the Indiana Jones movie series, you know it’s filled with many twists and turns, pitting good against evil, and of course, lots of booby traps to be avoided. According to the movie, legend had it that an ancient order of knights protected the cup, which was hidden in a cave. Henry Jones, Sr., had made the Grail his lifelong quest and had a notebook filled with research that would help lead them to the Grail. At one point or another, both sides get possession of the notebook, and in the end, those on both sides who survived the booby traps ended up in the room where the cup of Christ was hidden. This chamber was filled with many cups and chalices. Most of the cups were exquisite in their beauty and value. So, which ...

Romans 8:12-25 There are seven parables in  Matthew 13.  I preached on the parable of the sower last Sunday, and next Sunday Naomi will have five other parables to choose from. That leaves the parable of the Weeds, which is this week’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew. Even though I’m focusing most of my preaching this Pentecost season on the Gospel of Matthew, this morning we’re taking a short break and attending to a word from the book of Romans. In Romans 8, Paul speaks of two kinds of obligation. According to Paul we owe a debt either to the flesh or to the Spirit. We call the first obligation selfishness, and it leads to death and destruction. The other possible debt or obligation leads to freedom from fear and abundant life. If we embrace the Spirit, we will be adopted as children of God. If we’re children of God, then we are joint heirs with Christ of all the promises of God. That means that we can, with Jesus, address God as “Abba, Father.” 

Psalm 8 Homiletical theory suggests that the genre of a text should determine how it is preached. When it comes to the Psalms that bit of advice poses a problem for me.  Since I’m not a poet, trying to write a poetic sermon might not work all that well. But, even if you’re not a poet, it is good to regularly visit the Psalms. That’s because they speak powerfully about God and God’s creation. So, in the coming weeks most of my sermons will draw from the Psalms. However, I do want to put your minds at ease. I won’t be writing any bad poetry to share with you!   The Sunday after Pentecost is known as Trinity Sunday. It’s on this day in the church year that we focus our attention on the nature of God. From a theological point of view, the doctrine of the Trinity is a good reminder that God transcends our attempts to define God’s nature. When we look to the Psalms for guidance on such matters there is a Latin phrase that captures the essence of this:  Lex orandi, lex ...

Proverbs 8:22-31 “In the beginning was the Word, . . . All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” ( John 1:1, 3 ).  And Holy Wisdom declares:  “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts long ago . . . then I was beside him, like a master worker” ( Proverbs 8:22, 30 ).  Both Word and Wisdom are expressions of God’s nature and are partners with God in the work of creation.    Some in our society believe that one cannot be both a Creationist and an evolutionist. They say that we have to choose – God or science. For the past ten years I have been involved in an effort to counter that belief. For ten years I have invited the congregations I served to observe  Evolution Sunday  on a weekend near the birthday of Charles Darwin. While we didn’t get a birthday cake for Charles, we are joining hundreds of faith communities across the country and beyond by worshiping with Charles ...

Genesis 2:18-24 In the film Cast Awa y, which is a modern day retelling of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe , a FedEx plane goes down over the South Pacific.  The only survivor is a FedEx executive named Chuck Noland (played by Tom Hanks).  He tries to stay alive long enough to get rescued.  He survives, in part because he develops a friendship with a volley ball with a face drawn from us blood, and whom he calls  Wilson.  Wilson becomes his conversation partner and companion, and the message in this seems to be that it’s not good to be alone.  Now, after months of trying to get the attention of ships and planes, Chuck builds a raft, loads all the packages he had saved from the wreckage of the plane, and heads out to sea hoping that he can reach the shipping lanes so a passing ship can spot him.  Everything works out – sort of.  He does get rescued, but during the voyage a storm comes up and Wilson is lost at sea.  This loss devastates ...