Words of Welcome

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, UK  Psalm 84 I have been going to church all my life. I was baptized as an infant at St. Luke’s of the Mountains Episcopal Church in LaCrescenta, California. I was an acolyte at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church of Dunsmuir. I was confirmed at age twelve at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Klamath Falls, where I was an acolyte, lay reader, and choir member. I was baptized once more in a creek in Oregon at age seventeen, after I moved to the Foursquare Church. I was then ordained at age twenty-seven at Temple City Christian Church. That should qualify as dwelling in the house of the Lord all my life, “for a day in [God’s] courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.”   What is true of me might be true of you as well. Your story might be different in its details, but you have been dwelling in the House of the Lord your entire life. In fact, I know that at least a couple of our members were on the cradle roll of Central Woodward w...

Romans 8:26-39 On a hot and humid evening this past week, as we watched the Tigers play the Oakland A’s, John Balogh asked me whether I would be preaching a baseball-themed sermon?  Being a lifelong baseball fan,  I couldn’t let a request like that get away, and so I began thinking about how baseball might fit with this morning’s sermon theme.       In Romans 8 Paul poses a question:  “If God is for us, then who can be against us?”   Now, if you’re a Tiger’s fan, could you see God’s hand at work during the game Tuesday evening?  Because they won big, surely God must be on the side of the Tigers!   Of course, not everyone saw things this way, because two members of our group wore caps of the then first place Cleveland Indians.   And while I donned a Tiger’s hat and rooted them on as they played the hapless Oakland A’s, just few weeks earlier I wore a San Francisco Giants cap to the Giants-Tigers game and rooted for my boyhood ...

Mark 4:35-41 It’s Father’s Day, a day to remember and to honor fathers. As an added bonus, we get to eat pie after church. While our text this morning doesn’t speak of fathers, it does speak of a quality that fathers at their best instill into their children – that quality is trust. Unfortunately trust is easily broken and difficult to regain. But, without it, living, working, and worshiping as a community is impossible. Our text begins with Jesus’s decision to cross the Sea of Galilee and minister in the largely Gentile region called the Decapolis. Jesus had spent the day teaching, and now, quite tired, he fell asleep as the boats headed across the lake. He’s so tired that he doesn’t even wake up when a big storm hits, threatening to swamp the boats. While he sleeps, the disciples become terrified, believing that they’re going to die. And then, when they discover that Jesus is asleep, they wake him up with perturbed and frightened voices, asking him: “Don’t you care th...

Exodus 3:1-15 In the movie Evan Almighty , God appears in the form of Morgan Freeman to a newly elected Congressman named Evan Baxter. Like many politicians Evan ran on a grandiose platform. His was: “To Change the World.” God seems to have been paying attention to the campaign and asks Evan if he’s serious about his agenda. When Evan says yes, God tells him to build an ark. I won’t go into the details of the movie, but this movie, and others like it, raises an interesting question: What would you do if God appeared to you in human form and asked you to do something that seemed kind of outlandish? Like build an ark and gather the animals up – two by two. We Americans say that we believe in God – in fact pollsters tell us that 95% of us are believers in God. But, who is this God and what does that belief mean for our daily lives? Recent studies suggest that our view of God can be broken into four categories –A Benevolent God, an Authoritarian God, a Distant God, and a C...

John 17:1-11 We get anxious when change is at hand. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, change makes us nervous. And we’re getting ready for change, and I think we’re just a bit nervous. Although my future is somewhat clearer than yours, I share in your anxiety as we both head out in new directions. It is in the midst of this anxiety that we come to hear Jesus praying in the garden. In John’s telling of Jesus’ final hours, we hear him pray for his community. It’s often called Jesus’ high priestly prayer, because he takes on the role of an intercessor with God, and in this role he asks God to see them through the difficult times ahead. But more importantly he prays that they might share in God’s glory, even as he has shared in God’s glory. He asks that they might experience the same intimacy with God that Jesus experienced. And in the midst of this prayer, Jesus brings up eternal life. To experience intimacy with God is to share in eternity with God, so what does this mean? I. SHARIN...

Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25 The wait is over. If you’re not finished with your Christmas shopping, it’s too late. By the time we’re finished singing the last carol, the stores will all be closed. In fact, even Starbucks will be closed. And so it’s time to put aside the hustle and bustle of a season that starts earlier every year. Now that the day is here and the children are eagerly eyeing the presents under the tree, hoping that their every wish will be fulfilled, it’s time to stop and consider the true meaning of Christmas. It’s the kind of question Charlie Brown was asking. He didn’t find it in the pageant or in hunting for Christmas trees. Finally in desperation he cried out, begging for someone to give him an answer that made sense. It is at this point that Linus steps out and tells the story of the First Christmas from the perspective of St. Luke. We have come here tonight because, like Charlie Brown, we need to hear that Christmas is more than food, aluminum trees, and brigh...

Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36 I'm not a big mountain climber, but in my youth I climbed a few. Once I climbed Diamond Peak in Oregon. Standing more than 9000 feet above sea level, it wasn’t Everest, but it still wasn’t an easy hike for a thirteen-year-old Boy Scout. When I got to the top, I found a view that was breathtaking. I could see for miles in every direction, from the high plains of central Oregon in the east to the fertile Willamette Valley to the West. Looking north and south I could see the whole spine of the Cascade range punctuated by high peaks. Far below was Crescent Lake, the site of our Scout camp and off in the other direction was Odell Lake, both crystal clear and blue. There’s something truly awe inspiring about great mountains; they remind us of our own smallness and the grandeur of creation. When we stand on a mountain top, we also might find ourselves drawn into the presence of God. GOING TO THE MOUNTAIN From the earliest times we’ve gone to the mountains lo...