Words of Welcome

John 1:43-51 It’s been a while but you may remember our congregation-wide study of Martha Grace Reese’s book Unbinding the Gospel. She wrote the book because mainline Protestants seem uncomfortable with what she calls the “e-word.” That is, evangelism.  We talked a bit about this at a recent elders meeting in our discussion of Michael Kinnamon and Jan Linn’s book on Disciple identity. They bring up Paul’s word about being ministers of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5 ). They suggest that reconciliation isn’t a job entrusted to us, but “reconciliation is what Christians do as witnesses to God’s good news in Jesus Christ because reconciliation is who we are. Being in Christ has made us people of reconciliation, and being people of reconciliation is how we show the world we are in Christ.” [Kinnamon and Linn, Disciples , Kindle Edition].  There is great truth here. It’s important that we live out the message of reconciliation that God has implanted in us. This starts with the way w...

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...

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 establ...

Luke 1:39-55 Athletes, rock stars, and actors make the big bucks. When Alex Rodriguez signed a ten-year 252-million-dollar contract with the Texas Rangers five years ago, baseball fans were scandalized. No one has yet topped his contract, but they’re getting closer every year. Still, if you think that’s big, entertainers make even more. Don’t you find that kind of money hard to grasp? I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of how to spend that much money. Though it sure would buy a lot of books and the rooms and bookcases to put them in. Although money isn’t everything, it does tell us what we value most. If athletes and entertainers are worth millions, then why are teachers, nurses, fire fighters, and police officers paid so little? Isn’t what they do more important to our daily lives? Now that we’ve reached the end of our Advent journey, we’re ready to hear the Christmas message. But the real message of Christmas is quite different from the one our culture tells. Surprisingly enough, Chr...