Sermons
New, renewed and still new
So does the blog post title give you a hint about what this week’s sermons were about? One of the many great promises in the Bible is found in Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth where he writes, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NRSV) This is a great promise…
It is all about context
When we don’t have the correct context it is very difficult to understand what is going on. A pastor of my acquaintance, newly installed at a church, was reported to be “having lunch with a blonde” by a, no doubt well-meaning, parishioner who had never met the pastor’s daughter, the daughter had been away school. Not knowing the context meant that this person drew a correct but erroneous conclusion about…
Pentecost for all times
This Sunday was one of the high holy days in the Liturgical year, Pentecost. This is the Sunday that we celebrate the Holy Spirit coming in a new way to the people of God. The Holy Spirit has always been here, this arrival wasn’t the first, after all the Holy Spirit was there at creation and involved with all of the created order, including people, ever since. What was new…
Where do we belong?
Where do we belong? An interesting question that has so many potential answers. This Sunday’s texts had so many fruitful possibilities but the phrase I kept coming back to was “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” (John 15:17 NRSV) If we don’t belong in the world, then where do we belong? The sermon is an attempt to answer this question….
What’s the opposite of servant?
I have been struck lately, as I am sure is obvious, by the limitations of our tendency toward unhelpful binary thinking. So this Sunday I just lay it out in these two sermons where I think the limitations are using John 15:9-17 as my case study. This passage of scripture has lots of really great things going on but I wanted to focus on verse 15, “ I do not call…
Let’s talk vines
When I say, “Let’s talk vines” it most emphatically is not because I know much, if anything about them. My mother was an excellent gardener as are a number of my other relatives but if that is a genetic trait, I apparently mutated it out of my DNA. The sermons this week come from one of the very well known texts in John, another one of the “I am” statements…
Shepherds all!
I don’t often use sermon titles as blog post titles but I am this week because I can’t think of any clever variation on it and I like it. I have added the addition of an exclamation point however so I guess that might be considered a variation I suppose. This Sunday we looked at several of the many, many passages of scripture that deal with sheep and shepherds. As…
Peace
“Peace be with you” was the functional equivalent in Jesus’ time of “Hello” or perhaps “How are you doing?” so it hardly seems worth spending any time talking about his use of it in today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 24:36b-48) . . . so why did I? Not only did I mention it in both sermons, the title was “Peace be with you” and it is virtually all I talked about….
The best day of the year!
Today is the best day of the year. It is better than my birthday, than my anniversary, than any other day . . . today is Easter Sunday. I’m quite used to getting sideways looks from people, especially children when I say this and point out that the chocolate is not what makes it the best. Today is the best day of the year because this is the day when…
An interesting combination of days
This Sunday is called Palm / Passion Sunday. It is a response to the undeniable fact that most people do not find it convenient, and sometimes not even possible, to observe Holy Week; frequently not even Good Friday. So the good people who work out the Liturgical calendar and the Lectionary took what had been Palm Sunday and added the Monday to Saturday portions of Holy Week to it in…