Words of Welcome

  Romans 5:1-5 According to the liturgical calendar, today is Trinity Sunday. On a Sunday like this, we get to reflect on who God is. As history has proven, finding an answer to the question “who is God” has proven difficult. The Creeds define God as being one in substance but at the same time three persons. The first verse of our opening hymn declares:  Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning  our song shall rise to thee. Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty! God in three persons, blessed Trinity! At least since the fourth century, the majority of Christians have affirmed that definition of God’s nature, even if we still struggle to make sense of our confession. So, if you don’t completely understand the ins and outs of the Trinity, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Nevertheless, together with the majority of Christians throughout history, we proclaim that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This morning, we have heard a reading from the...

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...

    Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37 I have good news to share with you this morning. Advent has arrived and with it a new liturgical year begins. Today we begin a new journey that invites us to once again hear the story of God’s presence among us, as that presence is revealed in the life of Jesus and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. If we pay close attention to the story as it unfolds, we discover that when God visits us, God tends to shake things up. In the words of the third prophet we call Isaiah, in his prayer of repentance, he calls on God to tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake and God’s name would be made known to a distracted world. Yes, when God comes down, the nations tremble.  The season of Advent invites us to prepare for the coming of the Lord. The Gospel of Mark begins with the announcement that God is sending a messenger to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord by making the pathway for the Lord straight ( Mk 1:1-3 ). ...

1 Corinthians 15:12-20 The spirit of Easter has arrived early in three sets of lectionary readings from 1 Corinthians 15. Paul already revealed to us the core Christian message contained in the church’s confession “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” ( 1 Cor. 15:3 ). That’s Paul’s message, but if this is true, why are some members of the Corinthian church questioning the truth of this message? Why cast doubt on Paul’s message about the resurrection? Paul’s question is as relevant today as it was in the first century. People are still asking questions about the resurrection. Some people have trouble imagining the idea of bodily resurrection, especially since scientific proof is difficult to come by. Paul did offer up witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, but even that doesn’t suffice for many. It’s possible this was nothing more than a mass hallucination...

  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 ...

  Mark 16:1-8; Isaiah 25:6-9 On the morning of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome made their way to Jesus’ tomb. They brought spices with them to complete the burial process that was interrupted because the Sabbath arrived before they could finish their work. As they walked to the tomb, they remembered the stone that covered the entrance. While they had the spices, who as going to reopen the tomb? That question was quickly answered when they arrived at the tomb. It was already open and where they expected to find the body sat a young man dressed in a white robe. He spoke gently to the women who surely were in shock, telling them: “Don’t be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” Then he instructed them to “tell [Jesus’] disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” When they heard all of this, Mark tells us that the women fled in “t...

Psalm 111 “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, who rules all creation. O my soul, worship the wellspring of health and salvation. All ye who hear, now to God’s temple draw near. Join me in glad adoration.”  With this hymn, we lift up praise to God our creator who is the “wellspring of health and salvation.” We celebrate the one who “o’er all things so wondrously reigneth.” We do this in a time of pandemic when we might feel more like singing a lament than a song of praise. Nevertheless, we hear the call to sing praise to God in this word from Psalm 111 .  The psalm begins with a “Hallelujah” and concludes with a declaration that God’s “praise endures forever.” This song of praise invites us to give thanks to God with our whole heart because “great are the works of the Lord.” Scott Hoezee captures the feel of this Psalm when he writes: Psalm 111 is a shook-up bottle of champagne when the cork flies off: it is effervescent, effusive, and thus it is delightfully over th...

  Isaiah 64:1-9 Right now, many of us are praying: “Lord, Have Mercy.” We’re praying for 2020 to end so we can finally move into 2021. This year has been so challenging that the numbers “2020" have become the newest “swear word.” Surely 2021 will be a much better year!   The good news is that the first Sunday of Advent signals the beginning of a new liturgical year. It invites us to wait patiently, but with anticipation, for Jesus’ return in glory to set up the realm of God. We’re trying to symbolize this feeling of anticipation by the way we’re setting the Table. We’re starting out with a rather simple layout with just one candle, the candle of hope, sitting on the Table. Over the coming weeks, we’ll add more elements to the Table as we build toward the revealing of Emmanuel, God with Us, on Christmas Eve. While Advent helps us prepare for Christmas, the Scriptures and hymns of the season remind us that Advent is a forward-looking season. Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem ...

Psalm 130 Do you feel like crying out to God in this moment of uncertainty?  Do you feel like you are living in the depths of life? Spring may be breaking through the winter blues, but it’s difficult to enjoy the coming of spring when we’re supposed to stay home and stay safe. This morning we turn to Psalm 130 , which begins with a word of lament and ends with a word of hope. The Psalmist begins:  “Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.” Then along with the Psalmist, we plead with God, “Lord, hear my voice!” It’s at times like this that I appreciate the Psalms, which give voice to our laments. They remind us that it’s okay to grieve our losses, even if they’re momentary. As William Blaine-Wallace writes, “grief is prayerful attention, an awareness, acknowledgment, and embrace of life-the-way-it-really-is” [Blaine-Wallace, When Tears Sing , xxiv.]. This is the way life is right now. We’re watching as the Coronavirus marches across the globe. We watch as ...

Romans 5:1-11 You may have seen those “Keep Calm” posters. You may even have one in your house. You know the ones that say “Keep Calm and Carry On!” Or, it might be one of many variations on that theme. But, what do you do when life is anything but calm? We are experiencing just such a moment. We face a Coronavirus or more specifically a COVID-19 pandemic that has unknown consequences for us. We don’t know its full extent because there aren’t yet enough tests to go around and a vaccine for the virus is probably months away. Even if the virus appears to go away when summer arrives, it might come back next winter. Hopefully, there’ll be a vaccine by then, but we don’t know for sure. So, in the meantime we wait, trying to find a way forward.  This uncertainty about our situation is wreaking havoc on our society. The stock market crashed into bear territory, leaving many ordinary people wondering about their financial well-being. Universities are moving classes o...