Category: podcast

Absurdity

122125 SermonDownload

Biblical Text: Matthew 1:18-25

Most things in life are predictable. Partly because we usually stay in safe zones: our homes, our ruts, our habits. But occasionally something from outside breaks into our safe zones. Something absurd shakes us up. Some of those absurdities come from sin. They can come from the sin that we desire. Even worse they can come from sin that we had no part in. The absurdities of sin are the devil attempting to cancel or nullify the good creation of God. Now the Word of God also comes from outside of us. The Word comes and shakes us up. But it shakes us up for life, for eternal life. The Christmas story in Matthew is one absurdity after another. And yet those absurdities come together to save us. God – Immanuel – comes to us to save us from those sins the nullify. The sermon is a reflection in absurdity. How it can be a sign of Satan, but also how it is God doing a new thing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Where’s My Sign?

121425 SermonDownload

Biblical Text: Matthew 11:2-15

This is one of my favorite texts in the lectionary. I say that primarily because it is a big fat pitch that sets a preacher up to hit one out of the park. Not every text is that. There are hard texts that slapping a single is good. There are texts that the subject matter might be important, but just not that “sexy”. Again, the every Sunday preacher slaps a single, or maybe you can steal a double if you hustle. And then there are texts about why God doesn’t just solve all our problems. There are texts that are responses to “why?” There are texts that get right to the foot of the cross.

This one was helped by an odd occurrence in life. Someone stole a sign at church. It was a sign I had out in the front of the church on the main road inviting people in for Morning Prayer (Tuesday – Friday). Someone just walked away with it. That’s the introduction to the sermon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Lion and the Lamb

120725 SermonDownload

Biblical Text: Isaiah 11:1-10

I was trying something different with this sermon. I was also trying something different with the Pastor’s Corner this week. Advent is a vibe. Advent is promise and fulfillment overlapping. And at least in this world the fulfillment never seems complete, but the promise remains. While the corner tried to pull the reader into that time where John the Baptist and his message was the most important thing ever heard, this sermon attempts to map how the church today might feel postexilic. It attempts to point out what has been fulfilled. And start to understand why we have this feeling of longing and maybe slight sadness that often comes with it. Different times and places have different vibes. This was an attempt to understand ours. And still lean into the promise.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Who is This?

113025 sermonDownload

Biblical Text: Matthew 21:1-11

First Sunday of Advent. The text is always the Triumphant Entry – Palm Sunday. Now it could just be a replay of the previous Sunday’s sermon from Christ the King, but that misses the import of this procession. It is Christ presenting himself to his people. And I think parts of the opening of John’s gospel are a reflection on this. Historically, the King presented himself and his own would not have him. Christ continues to present himself to his people. And those who believe he gives the power to become children of God. What the procession does is show us just what kind of King this one is. The sermon does this by looking at three movements of the story: the donkey, the procession and the answers to “who is this?” The answers to that question are in the actions, and they are in the names. And then it is left on our hearts. Will we have this king?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

A Strange Coronation

112525 SermonDownload

Biblical Text: Luke 23:27-43

This was the Last Sunday of the Church Year, often called Christ the King Sunday. The sermon elaborates a little more on that source. But the three year cycle of reading in the year of Luke throws an oddity. The Gospel reading is the Via Dolorosa and Crucifixion. Why on Christ the King would we get this? The answer is that this is the coronation walk of the Universal King. The cross is the throne of the King in this world. The posting above the cross – “This is the King of the Jews” – INRI (iesus nazarenus rex iudaeorum in Latin, Pilate’s judgement, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews) – is the divine irony. It is the sentence that the world gave; it is also the truth.

And on this walk and enthronement the King grants alms and blessings and benedictions. We also see the division, the judgement as it is actually carried out. For it is at the foot of the cross that the judgement takes place. Are we mockers? Or are we beggars?

That’s a bit of the sermon. Give it a listen for the elaboration.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Hiding Behind Big Words

111625 SermonDownload

Biblical Text: Luke 21:5-28

The text is Jesus answering the disciple’s questions on the end of the world. The sermon is an attempt to hear it. Because like the disciples we are often in so much shock and horror about the end of something we think is eternal that we can’t hear. Jesus put them into that shock with his answer about the temple – “not a stone will be left.” But then he tries to talk about what such an end actually means. The short answer is: 1) This is this world. These things have always been. Nothing here is eternal. 2) The end of a world is not the end of the world. 3) Don’t worry about the end because your life is safe with Christ regardless of what this old world does. 4) You won’t miss it. You don’t need to look for signs or guess the time. The Son of Man comes with power and great glory. Nobody will miss it.

Now the problem is that isn’t a good a story as “The Omen” or “Left Behind” or even “The Terminator.” And for a variety of reasons theologians and pastors try and hide behind big words. And in doing so, we tend to cede the ground to those horror stories. And instead of an apocalypse being a revealing it becomes a terror. Instead of the eschatological last things causing us to lift up our heads because our redemption draws near we run from one panic to another. But Jesus point is that we already know how it ends. Christ wins. Which frees us to live now.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Power in the Name

110925 SermonDownload

Biblical Text: Exodus 3:1-15

It was a fun service to plan. All the hymns of the day contained verse about the name of God (Holy God We Praise Thy Name, At the Name of Jesus, All Hail the Power of Jesus Name, Jesus! Name of Wondrous Love, Savior Again to Thy Dear Name We Raise.) That is quite the powerhouse Sunday of beloved hymns. And all of them are pretty solid on the theology. But the Text is when Moses receives the name of God. The first solid point is that god is not a name. God is a generic word for a category. And the ideas behind that category can be quite different. What Moses receives is the name. We usually say “I AM.” And that has all kinds of philosophical points. But it is first a name. And there is power in names. Not the least that you can drop them.

This Sermon is a reflection on the 2nd commandment (Do not take the name of the LORD in vain) and Luther’s explanation. It finds it’s practical points in our language, namely the causal use of things like OMG. And how OMG might not be that big a deal in itself. It doesn’t seem to trespass any of Luther’s explanation. But that is only because of how flippantly we use it. A deeper meditation would be how such flippant use of language – not just a generic category god – influences everything else we speak or hear. That is what this sermon wants to ponder.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Walls of the Heart

110225 SermonDownload

Biblical Texts: Luke 19:1-10, Isaiah 1:10-18

The liturgical calendar gets more than a nod here, this is All Saints (Observed). The hymns carry the heavy load, maybe more so this year as I chose the lessons for the regular Sunday instead of the All Saints texts. The same texts tend to get skipped year after year. In this case the story of Zaccheaus and a rather harsh sounding Isaiah text. But I picked them for what I thought is an important, but often ignored aspect of All Saints. The day is usually given over to the Saints at Rest. Let me explain three terms. You have the Church Militant or the Saints Militant which is you and me if you are reading this. You have the Church/Saints at rest who are those who have died in the faith. Eventually you will have the church/saints triumphant who are all the saints in the resurrection. For a protestant All Saints is typically the day to remember those now with Christ. But these lessons were perfect I thought to meditate on the Church militant, and maybe even more specifically from a Protestant perspective what makes a saint.

Zaccheaus is an interesting view. The sermon connects it to an Old Testament story that I put forward in typological fashion. How different walls need to come down to enter the promised land. The walls that make a saint are the walls of the heart. It is the call of Jesus, when we are up a tree, that tells us to come down and invites himself in. And Zaccheaus complies and receives him joyfully. The sermon picks up from there.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Standing Before God

102625 SermonDownload

Biblical Text: Romans 3: 19-28

I don’t often preach from the epistle texts. A part of that is that the Epistles typically lack a hard narrative. I think we as humans understand narrative – the story of a life. And we understand how God works in our lives through the narrative. The narratives that the apostles had were ancient Isreal’s, Jesus and their own. The Epistles end up being authoritative examples of how one does theology – how you proclaim doctrine from the narrative. In that way they are great at teaching, but at least to me less for preaching.

But today was Reformation Day (Observed). And there is a narrative – the story of Martin Luther and the Reformation – that ties directly into the doctrinal teachings of the Epistle lesson. This Romans passage on the Righteousness of God is what Luther was reading when he had his “tower experience.” That experience was when the gospel was cemented in his brain.

This sermon attempts to weave that narrative, and Paul’s doctrine together with how we might live our lives – how we might tell our own stories. How the righteousness of God comes to us. How it is the sure foundation. And How we might build on that.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download