Words of Welcome

  Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) by Paul Gauguin Genesis 32:22-31 When I was a kid, my mother decided I needed to learn how to defend myself. So, she signed me up for wrestling camp. Now, I would have rather spent my Saturday mornings at basketball camp, but I ended up spending six Saturdays supposedly learning to wrestle. I think I tried my best, but I never became a very proficient wrestler. The camp ended with a tournament and much to my relief I got pinned in the first round. That was the end of my wrestling career. I don’t know if Jacob went to wrestling camp, but according to our reading from Genesis, he was a very competitive wrestler. He even might have been Olympic caliber! At this point in Jacob’s story, he’s reached the Jabbok River. His brother Esau lived on the other side of the river. Jacob and Esau were twin brothers and rivals. This relationship carried a lot of baggage that goes back to the womb.  Years before Jacob fled his ho...

  Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 While I once lived in a small town when I was a child, I’ve lived most of my adult life in cities. I started life in Los Angeles and lived briefly in San Francisco, but my first true memories are connected to my childhood in the small town of Mount Shasta. Although I tasted small-town life before I ever experienced city life, I know what it means to be a city boy, if you count the suburbs as the city! So, what responsibility do we have as suburbanites for the welfare of the city? That’s our question for today! We’ve heard a word from the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote a letter to Jewish exiles living in Babylon. These exiles included the elders, priests, prophets, and everyone else whom Nebuchadnezzar sent to Babylon in the first wave of exiles who accompanied King Jeconiah and his mother. This was before the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple a decade later. At that point, the exiles still hoped they could return to their homes in Jerusalem. Nevertheless...

  Luke 16:19-31 At Christmas time our family watches as many versions of A Christmas Carol as we can. In Dickens’ tale, we see a man consumed by money. As time goes on, he turns everyone around him into an object to be used and abused. Scrooge’s life story reflects the word we hear in 1 Timothy 6. According to that word,  “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” ( 1 Tim. 6:10 ).  While the pursuit of wealth plays a central role in the Christmas Carol and in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, there is one major difference. Scrooge doesn’t spend his money on himself. However, neither Scrooge nor the Rich Man, show any concern for the needs of their neighbors. Scrooge has only one goal in life, and that’s to fill his vault with gold. Even though he’s the richest person in town, he’s also the most miserable. Since he’s miserable, he makes everyone else’s life miserable. Fortunately for Ebenezer Scrooge, he receives a visit from the ghost of his f...

  Luke 15:1-10 There are “in crowds” and the “not-so-in crowds.”  It’s always better to be part of the in-crowd, even if that means living on the margins of the group. At least you’re inside the circle! Unfortunately, not everyone gets to live inside the circle. Even churches have cliques that by design exclude certain people. These cliques might not have secret codes or handshakes, but they do send signals letting people know they’re not welcome.             We see this played out in the 2007 movie Hair Spray. In that movie, John Travolta plays Edna Turnblad, the obese mother of an overweight but determined daughter named Tracy. Edna watches as her very talented daughter is kept from achieving her dream of dancing on the Corny Collins Show. Although Tracy is a very good dancer, she doesn’t fit the youth-oriented variety show’s image of a dancer. So, the “powers that be” collude to make sure she doesn’t get on the show. Even when a slip ...

  Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 The Psalmist invites us to sing God’s praises  because we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Not only is God the creator of the universe, but God has formed our inward parts and knit us together in our mother’s womb. That means we matter to God.  The first creation account reveals that we are created in God’s image. Then in the second creation account, in Genesis 2, it’s revealed that God’s hands got dirty when God created the first human. Jeremiah reinforces that message when he describes God’s relationship to Israel in terms of God the potter. While Jeremiah uses that image to speak of God’s judgment on Israel, we can also read into that imagery a sense of God’s intimate relationship with creation. So, it appears that God isn’t concerned about dirty hands! ( Jer., 18:1-11 ) All of this suggests that life is sacred. Just as the Psalmist speaks of God’s intimate relationship with God’s creation, the prologue to John’s Gospel reinforces...

  Matthew 25:31-46 No one wants to go before a judge, at least not without a good attorney present! Perhaps, like me, you have had your day in court. My day came back in my 20s when I appeared in traffic court to make my confession of guilt for speeding. I didn’t need an attorney that day but some people do.  Here in Matthew 25 , Jesus speaks of the day when the Son of Man comes in his glory to gather the peoples of the earth to face the day of final judgment. On that day Jesus, the Son of Man, takes on the role of judge and separates the sheep from the goats. The question Jesus raises for us is whether we’re ready to face the judge. This reading from Matthew is sometimes thought of as a parable, but it’s not really a parable. Instead, Jesus issues a warning to us about the choices we make in life. He uses the images of sheep and goats. In this picture, on the day of judgment, the king will reward the sheep and punish the goats. The sheep are the righteous and the goats ...

  Colossians 3:1-14 Mark Twain famously said that “Clothes make the man.” With that in mind, there’s a nonprofit called “Dress for Success” that provides appropriate clothing for job seekers. So, even in this much more casual era, clothes still stand for something. The Colossian letter speaks of life in terms of  “before and after.” Once upon a time, the majority of Colossian believers were pagan Gentiles. Then, when they received the Gospel of Jesus, they in essence put on new clothes to represent their new status as children of God. Although they once lived in darkness marked by sinful idolatry, now that they have clothed themselves with Christ, they live in the light. These new clothes represent the new, transformed self (Col. 3:9-10).  In our reading this morning, we see Paul contrasting the difference between the old and new clothes by providing the reader with a list of vices and a list of virtues. The list of vices represents their old life, their old clothes...