Words of Welcome

  2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 When the Hubble telescope was set in place, it brought the vastness of the universe into focus in ways never before imagined. But, after it was deployed, the scientists working with the telescope discovered a flaw in the lens that made the image fuzzy. So, NASA launched a shuttle with a crew that could repair the telescope, making it possible to view the wonders of the universe with greater clarity.  I also know what it means to bring things into focus on a more personal level. That’s because every morning since I was in fourth grade, I put on my glasses so I can see the world with greater clarity than I can without them. Once upon a time, I might have been considered blind, but now, thanks to the science of optics I can see clearly!   In our reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church, he speaks about focusing on things that cannot be seen with the naked eye. He tells the Corinthians that what we see and experience with ...

  Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 Last Sunday we accompanied Jesus up the mountain so he could pray. This Sunday we join Jesus as he goes into the wilderness to fast and pray. During his time in the wilderness, Jesus faces three temptations. Each time he says no to the tempter.  Jesus’ forty-day sojourn in the wilderness serves as the foundation for our Lenten journey. During this season we have the opportunity to look inward and reflect on our relationship with God and one another. I’m drawing my Lenten sermons from the Psalms, which provide us with prayers and songs that speak to our deepest concerns and greatest joys. So whether it’s a song of praise or lament, the Psalms invite us to sing to God from the heart. With this in mind Walter Brueggemann speaks of why we sing as the people of God:   We sing because life is God-given, God-sustained, and God-claimed. Our singing is our glad assent to that God-givenness and refusal to have our lives be less than, more than, or ot...

Matthew 5:13-16 Our stewardship theme this year asks the question: What Shall We Bring? The sermon text for next Sunday is Micah 6:8, which asks this very question: “What does the Lord require?” As we think about these questions, I can share this word from the introductory material that guides our season:   “Stewardship is about more than money. It is a whole life response to the abundant generosity of God.”  Of course, money is part of the equation, but stewardship is about more than that, as we see in today’s scripture. The word of the Lord for us today comes from the Gospel of Matthew.  Jesus is sitting on a hillside, somewhere in Galilee. He’s delivering what we call the Sermon on the Mount. When we hear these words about Salt and Light, it’s good to know that Jesus has just finished revealing the Beatitudes. He tells the people what it means to be blessed. There are different blessings accorded to different kinds of people, ranging from the poor t...

1 John 5:1-6 We recently sang the hymn “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” That is the hope, isn’t it? We want to be “one in the Spirit,” and “one in the Lord.” We hope that “unity may one day be restored.”   After all, we are Disciples of Christ, “a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.”  Last Sunday we heard a word from 1 John that invites us to “love one another, because love is from God.” He also tells us that “everyone who loves is born of God” ( I Jn. 4:7 ). John wrote these words to a congregation that was in the middle of a big fight that threatened to tear their community apart. So, when he told them to love one another he was reminding them that they were born to love.     This Sunday we hear another word about loving one another. In our reading for today, John talks about love, and he continually uses forms of the Greek word agapē. Tom Oord defines agapē as “acting intentionally, in response to God and others, to...

1 John 4:7-21 “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” That may be true, but what is love and where does it come from? Do we need to just sing some silly love songs, because, as Paul McCartney put it, “some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs, and what’s wrong with that?”   If what the world needs now is love, then we need to define our terms. Is love a feeling, an emotion, or something else? The love songs that fill the air usually speak of tender feelings between two people, because “when I fall in love, it will be forever, or I’ll never fall in love.” If we’re honest with ourselves, each of us has probably “fallen in love” a couple of times. It’s possible that we have found a love that  “will be forever,” but perhaps not.  When Jesus shared the two love commands, which he drew from the Hebrew Bible, he had more in mind than feelings. He used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate neighborly love. You know the story, a...

Philippians 2:5-11 Do you remember starting each school day standing beside your desk, placing your hand upon our heart, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance? Did you raise any questions with the teacher about this practice? Although, we probably didn’t understand the implications of our pledge, we recited the words and then sat down and began the day. It’s quite possible that the wording that some of you used was different from what I recited, but the implications are the same. We pledged to be good citizens of our country.   I do need to add that there was one child who stayed seated during the pledge. He was a Jehovah’s Witness. They refuse to say the pledge, because they believe that it is a form of idol worship. Since the rest of us didn’t have any religious qualms about the pledge or the flag, we did our duty and got on with our day without much thought. 

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28 We have reached the Third Sunday of Advent. We have lit the rose-colored candle, which symbolizes the message of joy. The Psalm for the day declares that “The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.” Then in the closing verses of the Psalm, the people sing: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves” ( Psalm 126:5-6 ). As we gather to celebrate this message of Joy, we hear the words of Paul to the church at Thessalonika. If you want to get a sense of what the church looked like in its earliest days, this letter to a Macedonian church is a good place to go, since this is believed to be the oldest part of the New Testament. What we have read are Paul’s final exhortations and benediction. There’s a flurry of information here that can overwhelm the reader and leave the preacher puzzled as to how to deal with it. Fortun...

1 Corinthians 12:3-13 I have a funny story to tell. Somehow, as I was laying out my sermon plans, when I got to Pentecost, I decided to go with the lectionary reading from 1 Corinthians 12. But, for some reason I put down 1 Corinthians 13 instead. Then, when I sat down to do worship planning, I used 1 Corinthians 13 as the guide. I also began contemplating how this message of love fit with Pentecost. It didn’t dawn on me until Tuesday morning that I had the wrong text. When I read through the lectionary selection, I thought it was odd that the lectionary would omit the first two verses. Now, the creators of the lectionary have their reasons for omitting verses of a passage, but what is it about speaking in the tongues of mortals and angels that would be controversial. So, I turned to a lectionary commentary to see why these verses had been omitted. To my surprise, I discovered that I had the wrong text.  Now everything made sense, including the title of the sermon. That’s how ...

Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 In the words of Isaac Watts’ hymn, which we sang earlier this morning, we capture the message of Psalm 77: O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.  When times of trouble strike, and they will strike, where do you turn? To whom do you look for guidance and protection? Do you turn to God, who is “our help in ages past, our hope for years to come?” As we have been moving through the Psalms, we’ve discovered that they invite us to cry out in laments. They give us permission to rage and complain. It’s okay that our souls refuse to be comforted. It’s not a sin to have doubts. Here in Psalm 77 the Psalmist cries out to God demanding to be heard. After issuing a torrent of complaints, the Psalmist then remembers that God has been our help in ages past. Recognizing the prospect that life can be challenging, Martin Luther wrote a hymn that picked up on another Psalm, Psalm 46...

Song of Solomon 2:8-13 Every generation since the beginning of recorded human history has had its love songs. You might have a favorite and I might have mine. It’s likely that our differences of generation will influence our choices. Our scripture reading this morning is itself a love song, or at least a small portion of one of the great epic love songs ever written. As I was thinking about this song, a tune from my teen years came to mind. It’s one of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles hits, and I think it fits the moment. The first stanza goes like this:  You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs I look around me and I see it isn't so Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs And what's wrong with that? I'd like to know 'Cause here I go again I love you, I love you I love you, I love you. Yes, what’s wrong with singing silly love songs?  There’s another song from those years that also s...

1 John 4:7-12 When I was in high school, we often sang a song in Bible study that drew from the Song of Solomon.  It went like this: I am my beloved’s, and he is mine. His banner over me is Love.  ( Song of Songs 6:3; 2:4 ) Who is the beloved whose banner over me is love? If you read the Song of Solomon in a straightforward way, you’ll discover that this is a most explicit love song. But, down through the ages, Christians have read this song allegorically to describe Christ’s relationship with the church. Christ is the Beloved, and those over whom the banner of love flies belongs to him.      In one of the weddings at which I officiated, the Scripture text was taken from the Song of Solomon. Among the words shared that day were these: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.  Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, n...

Romans 12:9-21 Sometimes you come across a passage of Scripture that could take several months of sermons to explore.  This is true of today’s reading.  With sentences coming at us in rapid-fire fashion, it demands a great degree of reflection.  Since I’m not planning an extended series at this moment, I will try to refrain from dwelling too long in every nook and cranny of Paul’s message.   Each statement is an imperative sentence that speaks to what it means to live the Christian life.  It’s fitting that this reading comes on Labor Day Weekend, because it will take a lot of work to fulfill Paul’s expectations.   The key to this passage is the call to “let love be genuine” (vs. 9).  Everything that follows is an expression of genuine love.  It’s not romantic love.  It’s not just friendship.  It’s Agape love.  When it comes to defining love, I’ve been turning to theologian Tom Oord for help.  His basic definition...

Matthew 5:38-48 This morning we return to our journey through Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. One of the basic premises of this sermon is that if we want to be disciples of Jesus, then our righteousness, our sense of justice, and our character must exceed that of the Scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 5:17). In our last installment we heard Jesus push on our understanding of the Law, by calling on the people of God to internalize God’s teachings so that not only will we live right, but our hearts will be transformed. This morning we continue what we began in the last sermon of this series by listening to Jesus’ call for us to embrace the “law of love.” As we saw in the last leg of the journey, Jesus says to the people: “You’ve heard it said . . . But I say to you . . .” In this morning’s text Jesus does this two more times. First he speaks to retaliation and then he speaks to loving our enemies. If you look closely, you see that these are two sides of the same coin. 1. Beyond the L...