Words of Welcome

  The Dance of the Golden Calf Exodus 32:1-14 When many of us were children, long road trips could be challenging. We can get impatient. From the back seat we can be heard asking our parents: “Are we there yet?” Such was the perspective of the people of Israel as they traveled across Sinai toward the Promised Land. They could be heard on many an occasion whining about their situation. Then, when Moses seemed to disappear after going up the mountain to visit with God, they got worried and decided to take things into their own hands. If Moses, who spoke for God, wasn’t around to lead them, maybe they needed new leaders and new gods.  Now, when God made a covenant with Israel, God gave the people a set of rules and regulations that defined God’s covenant expectations. We call these rules the Ten Commandments. This set of commandments begins with this proclamation:  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall...

  1 Peter 2:18-25 As you know, Pastor Dan decided to spend Eastertide working through 1 Peter in his sermons. There’s some really interesting stuff in 1 Peter, but unfortunately for me, he left me the most difficult passage to work through. Peter begins this passage by telling slaves to obey their masters even if that leads to suffering. He tells the slaves in the Christian community that if they suffer, they should make sure they’re suffering for doing what is right. If you suffer for doing what is right, you’ll receive God’s approval. I don’t know about you, but this passage makes me rather uncomfortable. Not only does Peter speak about suffering, but he seems to give approval to slavery. In fact, many proponents of slavery, especially here in the United States appealed to this and passages like it to defend slavery. Now, I could have avoided the discussion of slavery. After all, the creators of the Revised Common Lectionary chose to omit verse 18 and begin the reading in ver...

Luke 11:1-13 The theme for this year’s General Assembly emerged from this very passage of Scripture – “Lord, Teach Us to Pray.”  It was a good theme for us to take up as we entered once again into important but often difficult conversations.  It is always good to bathe our conversations in prayer.  After all, we come together as followers of Jesus who seek to be in relationship with the living God.  Sometimes we forget that this is true.  Our prayers become perfunctory rituals.  We offer a quick word to God, assuming God is paying attention, and then we get on with business, often forgetting that we’ve invited God into the conversation.     The Disciples come to Jesus and they ask him to provide them with a distinctive way of praying – just like John did for his disciples.  And Jesus complies.  The result is a prayer that in one form or another we’ve been offering up to God for two millennia.   Luke’s version is a...

Luke 8:26-39 What do Aimee Semple McPherson, Katherine Kuhlman, Benny Hinn and Jesus have in common? The answer: They all connected healing with faith. I realize that putting Jesus in the company of these other faith healers may seem inappropriate to many, but I think it will help us think about how Jesus’ healing ministry should be understood. There have always been those who claim to heal in the name of God. Some have been shysters and frauds, but others have brought gifts of grace and healing to the lives of many. Some have used the tools of modern medicine, while others have turned to alternative forms of healing, including prayer and anointing with oil. Jesus is among those who have brought God’s healing presence into our lives in ways that are beyond a scientifically-based medicine. The healing stories involving Jesus are often dramatic, but they also raise questions. If Jesus can heal this demoniac or Blind Bartimaeus, why not me? People of faith often wrestle with the relati...

Luke 11:1-4; 1 Chronicles 29:10-13 It’s Easter, which is a day of joyous celebration. We’ve come to share in the Easter story with song and with word. We’ve come to offer to God words of praise, declaring our allegiance to the one who is risen from the dead. We’ve come in the hope of the resurrection, seeking to find strength and peace in the presence of God. It is in this context that we hear the call of God: Lift up your hearts, lift up your eyes, and behold what great things God is doing in your midst! On this Easter morning, as we join in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, we also bring to a close a series of sermons that focus on the Lord’s Prayer. You won’t find the closing statement of this prayer – “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever” – in either of the two gospel accounts of the Lord’s Prayer, at least not in our modern translations. As you may know, this is because this phrase isn’t found in out the oldest of our manuscripts. But, this closing ...

Matthew 6:7-13; Luke 4:1-15 We began this morning’s service with a procession of palms, singing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” thereby celebrating Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  According to the gospels, Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey as a large crowd hailed him as their king.  The authorities, as they watched this scene unfold, would have seen this as a rejection of Caesar’s rule.  Many others in the crowd might have wondered whether they were witnessing the inauguration of God’s reign in the world.  Yes, it would seem as if Jesus had the city in the palm of his hand.  It must have been tempting to hear the cries of the crowd.  If he chose this moment to launch a revolution, surely the people would have come out in force to overturn the system.  Yes, it must have been tempting, but Jesus understood that God’s kingdom would come into the world in a very different way.       The journey that led to ...

Matthew 6:7-15; Luke 6:37-42     As much as we like to say the words “don’t judge,” every one of us has served as judge and jury.  I think it must be human nature!   Maybe it’s the way some person dresses or the car they drive.  Driving a Toyota in Michigan might get you stares, while driving a Prius in Southern California will get you words of praise.   Yes, we love Jesus’s command:  “don’t judge, lest you be judged.”  But, we all find it difficult to remove the log that sits there in our own eyes, even as we try to pick out the speck in the eye of the other.      As we come to the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, having prayed that God would hallow God’s name, that God would reveal God’s reign, and having asked that God would provide us our daily bread, we come to the matter of forgiveness.  How should we hear this promise of forgiveness, which seems to be contingent on our willingness to forgive ...

Luke 11:1-4; Luke 12:22-34 We’ve come to the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer.  In the previous two petitions we’ve asked God to make God’s name holy in our lives, and we’ve asked that God’s reign would be made known in our midst, even as we seek to know and do God’s will.  Having made these requests, which focus on God holiness and God’s reign on earth as well as in heaven, we make our first request of God.  And in this request, we focus on our most basic of needs – our daily bread.  Yes, food, water, shelter, these are the basics, and so it’s not surprising that this is where Jesus begins.         The idea that God is the provider of our daily bread goes back at least to the Exodus story, where the people of Israel find themselves wandering for forty years in the desert of Sinai.  Reading the story, you might think that the people expected a quick trip across the desert, and on into the promised land.  Yes, just a hop, ...