Words of Welcome

  1 Peter 2:2-10 Perhaps you can remember picking teams for a PE class or some other athletic event. No one wants to be the last person chosen. It’s not a good feeling. However, it’s a different story if you’re among the first picks. Perhaps you watched or paid attention to last week’s NFL draft. The Lions took Right Tackle Blake Miller from Clemson with its first pick, but the first overall pick was quarterback Fernando Mendoza, formerly of the Indiana Hoosiers. While it is a great honor to be the first pick, it does come with certain risks. That’s because the team with the first pick had the worst record in the league the year before. So, sometimes it’s better to be drafted near the end of the first round, so you can go to a good team. Then there’s the final pick of the draft. They call this person “Mr. Irrelevant” because everyone assumes he won’t make it in the NFL. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Sometimes Mr. Irrelevant can go on to be a star, as is the case wi...

  Ephesians 4:1-16 In our last encounter with the letter to the Ephesians, we heard the author, who I’ll call Paul for the rest of the sermon despite questions about his authorship, speak about Jesus tearing down the dividing walls of hostility. While there are many kinds of dividing walls in our world, I believe Jesus has called and gifted us to participate with him in tearing down these dividing walls.  Here in Ephesians 4, Paul begs us to maintain the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” As we seek to maintain this unity, he speaks of the gifts of grace God pours out on the church that help equip us for ministry in the church and the world.   We begin this morning with a call to the Ephesians to “walk in a manner worthy of their calling.” They will fulfill this calling by living lives of humility, gentleness, patience, and love. That same calling has been given to us so that when we embody these virtues, we can “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the...

  William Wilson, Caritas, Glasgow Cathedral 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 As we continue our journey through the season of Epiphany, we’re looking for manifestations of God’s presence in the world. We began with the Magi following a star to Bethlehem, and that led to hearing God call out to Jesus at his baptism. We’ve heard Paul say that “to each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” ( 1 Cor. 12:7 ) and that the church is a manifestation of the presence of Jesus’s body in the world. Although the gifts of the Spirit are important to the health of the body of Christ, there is one more thing needed. That is what Paul calls the “more excellent way” ( 1 Cor. 12:31 ).  What is this “more excellent way?” It’s as that 1960s song proclaimed: “What the World needs now is love, sweet love.” That is the message of 1 Corinthians 13.  Paul places this hymn to love right in the middle of his discussion of spiritual gifts. Since the Corinthians are arguing about whi...

  1 Corinthians 12:12-31a The church is more than a building but it’s also more than a voluntary association of people. At least, that’s what Paul thinks. According to Paul, the church is much like the human body, which has many parts. If the body is healthy, all of its parts work together in harmony. The same is true of the church, the Body of Christ.  Paul tells us that we’re joined together as the Body of Christ through our baptism into Christ. It doesn’t matter if we’re slave or free, Jew or Greek, because we’re all one in the Spirit of God. Paul doesn’t give us a detailed anatomy lesson when he describes the Body of Christ. He just assumes we all have a basic knowledge of how the body works. He focuses our attention on the diversity of parts in both the human body and the body of Christ. In a healthy body, every member plays their part. You may notice that Paul uses a bit of humor and sarcasm to get his point across. He asks us to consider the possibility that ...

1 Corinthians 12:1-11 John the Baptist stood in the Jordan River preaching a message of repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins. When people asked if he was the Messiah, he told the people that while he baptized with water, another person was coming who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire ( Lk 3:1-17 ). Last Sunday, when we reaffirmed our baptismal vows, we reaffirmed the promise that in our baptisms we have been sealed with this same Holy Spirit John spoke of. Yes, Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. This Sunday we build on that message by turning to Paul’s discussion of spiritual things. Here in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul tells the believers in Corinth that he does want them to be ignorant when it comes to spiritual things.   Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church reveal something interesting. They are a very dysfunctional congregation, which means dysfunctional churches have been around since the very beginning of the Christian...

  Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 In the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, three convicts break free from a chain gang and head off on a journey. Everett, Pete, and Delmar have many interesting encounters and adventures that mirror Homer’s story of Odysseus. Along the way, the trio comes upon a group of people lining up to be baptized in a river.    When Delmar hears the people singing Down to the River to Pray he runs down to the river and jumps to the front of the line so he can be baptized by the preacher without delay. When he rises from the baptismal waters, he believes that he is now a changed man. The old Delmar had been buried with Jesus in the waters of baptism and as he rose with Jesus he was a new creation ( Rom. 6:1-4 ). Filled with joy, he shared the good news with his companions:  Well that's it boys, I been redeemed! The preacher warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight-and-narrow from here on out and heaven everlasting's my reward! A...

  Ephesians 1:3-14 With a new year beginning, we can begin thinking about what 2022 will bring? We start the year with COVID still hanging over our heads, along with much political uncertainty and polarization. It’s easy to get discouraged, but we’re not without hope. We don’t know what this year will bring, but we take confidence in the promise that God has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” So blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  We opened worship singing about a “star shining in the east beyond them far, and to the earth it gave a great light.” [ Glory to God , 147 v. 2]. We’ll close our worship singing about the “Star of wonder, Star of night, Star with royal beauty bright” that will “guide us to thy perfect light!” [ Glory to God , 151]. These hymns promise that God will guide us through life, blessing us with spiritual gifts and calling us to ministries of blessing. As we follow the star, guided by God...

Romans 12:1-8 When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? What kind of life did you want to lead? Maybe you knew from a very young age what you were going to do when you grew up, but I tried on several possibilities in my mind. At one point I thought about being an oceanographer and then a photographer. Back in ninth grade, I took a class called “Self Understanding through Occupational Exploration.” One of the class assignments required visiting with people whose jobs we might pursue. I chose to visit an attorney and toured a radio station. I will confess that at one point I even thought about being a politician. As you can see, ministry wasn’t among my earliest aspirations. We tend to answer the questions about what should we do and who we should be in terms of our vocations, our jobs. Early in life children are encouraged to decide on a vocational path, but is this the only way to answer these questions? What if we thought in terms of Leading Liv...

The Preacher - Charles White (1940) - Huntington Library 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 When Paul wrote the letter we know as 1 Corinthians, he addressed a congregation in distress. They were divided into factions and were involved in all kinds of bad behavior. Paul planted this congregation and loved it, like a parent loves a child. Like a parent, he had high hopes for his children. But, when he moved on from Corinth, things didn’t go as planned, and he was forced to intervene.  You might say that he was acting as a Regional Minister. Last Sunday we heard Paul reveal that each member of the church was given “manifestations of the Spirit for the common good” ( 1 Cor. 12:7 ). This revelation leads to Paul’s definition of the church as the “Body of Christ.”  In using the image of the body to describe the Christian community, Paul drew on an analogy that went back centuries in the Greco-Roman world. But, he put a new spin on the image, turning it on its head. Instead of u...