Words of Welcome

  Luke 4:16-30 It is said that you can never go home again once you leave. There is a lot of truth to this adage, especially if you leave small towns and cities like the ones I grew up in and head to the big city. Most of my hometown friends who headed off to college didn’t return. While we enjoyed growing up in our hometown, college seemed to change us. Now, I don’t know if Jesus went off to college, but it appears something similar happened to him after he reached adulthood.  According to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus began his ministry at the age of thirty ( Luke 3:21-23 ). We don’t know what happened to Jesus between the age of twelve when the family returned to Nazareth after a visit to Jerusalem and the age of thirty when he began his ministry in Galilee except that he “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine favor” ( Luke 2:52 ). People have tried to fill in the blanks with trips to India and England, or time spent with a Jewish monastic group called the Essenes. It’...

The Visitation  Luke 1:46-55                 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that God had chosen her to bear a child, saying:        “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  31  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.    He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.    He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”   ( Luke 1:31-33 ). After Mary heard Gabriel’s message, she had a choice. She could accept this mission, or she could turn it down. You see, God gives us choices. Although Mary could have said no, she said yes, even though she did raise some good questions about how this was going...

Luke 4:21-30   Don’t you love cliff hangers? If you’re old enough, you might remember that for an entire summer the nation’s attention was arrested by the question of “Who shot J.R.?” The lectionary left us in a somewhat similar position last week. When last we gathered, Jesus was making a few comments about the reading from  Isaiah 61 , which spoke of the Year of Jubilee. When he sat down, he told the congregation: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s where we pick up the story this morning. Jesus is telling the people that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah 61. He is the one anointed with the Spirit who will institute the Year of Jubilee, and with it freedom from poverty, imprisonment, and captivity.  The people are still amazed at his words, after all this is Joseph’s son. We know this man. We watched him grow up. So how did he become such a great preacher? Well that’s as good as it gets, because Jesus quickly moves from hometown ...

Note:  We celebrated the life of one of our church members in worship this morning.  I've decided to share the bulk of the sermon, but I've removed the section where I recount the life of our beloved church member.    Jeremiah 1:4-10 There are few callings in life as risky and dangerous as that of a prophet.  Remember how  Jesus told the folks in Nazareth that prophets aren’t always welcome in their hometowns (Lk 4:24).  Moses found out the hard way that even if God sends you to deliver people from slavery, they may resist your efforts.  So, Jeremiah may have had good reasons to question his calling to be a prophet to the nations.  It didn’t even matter that God had made the choice in the womb, which is why Jeremiah told God –  “I don’t know how to speak because I’m only a child.”  No one is going to listen to me.  I’m too young and inexperienced. What does God say in response to Jeremiah’s questions – he simpl...

Lamentations 3:22-33 I don’t think I’ve ever preached from this book of poems called Lamentations that sits between Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke for God during the time of exile, offering both words of judgment and hope.  Although tradition suggests that Jeremiah is the author of these poems, that’s rather unlikely, but it’s clear that they were written during the exile.  They speak of that day when the people of Judah watched the Babylonians destroy the city of Jerusalem and  its Temple, and then carry off its king and the leading members of society into exile. These were trying times and so a book of Lamentations seems appropriate.   Although we may not use words like “lamentations” or “lament” very often in our daily speech, because they have a variety of meanings they can be useful words.   Lament can mean “I’m sorry.”  I’ve done my share of this kind of lamenting. It can also refer to mourning or gri...

Hebrews 12:18-29 I’m a survivor. Yes, I’ve survived several earthquakes, although none of them have been massive. The largest quake we ever experienced was the Northridge Quake in 1994, but it was centered miles away from our apartment in Rancho Cucamonga. That quake started with a jolt and then a rumble. The moment it struck I didn’t know its intensity or its epicenter, but I knew it wasn’t a train going by the complex. So I jumped out of bed, grabbed Brett, and headed for the door jam. The quake didn't last long, just a mater of seconds, but it rattled my nerves, and it was a while before we got back to sleep. We later learned that it was a 6.7 earthquake that, wreaked havoc on the Los Angeles basin. It led to the deaths of 17 people, injured scores more, and took down important freeway overpasses and numerous buildings in the San Fernando Valley. When I got to work at the library in Pasadena, which was much closer to the epicenter, I discovered I had a mess to clean up – inclu...