Sermon – John 1:43-51 – What you believe effects what you see

This sermon is counter intuitive in its message. We naturally think that first we see something, then we sort it out, and eventually form beliefs based on those observations. That is not what John in the text or the small catachism say about faith.

Third article of the creed…what does this mean? I believe that I cannot by my own reason of strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel….

In the text Jesus asks Nathanael if he believes because I told you you were sitting under a tree? The answer is no, but becuase he does believe he will see greater things than that. John is full of these encounters with Jesus and how people come to believe or has deficient belief. The Strongest might be Mary Magadelen at the resurrection (John 20:10-18). She “sees” Jesus, but doesn’t believe it. She thinks he’s the gardener, but then Jesus calls her, and she “sees” Jesus. If your firm belief is dead people don’t rise, you can’t see the risen Lord, at least not without intervention.

The true Israelite, unlike the original Israel is Gen 28:16, “sees” the Lord in this place. The Son of God might be hidden behind a cross, the face of a homeless person, bread and wine, the frailty of a minister, but surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.

I putting the sermon together I stumbled accross the scientist story. I thought it was a great example coming from the ultimate ground of seeing in believing where seeing was shaped by belief.

Ultimately we as Christians have a vocation more like Philip who called Nathanael. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see! We invite the blind to see. And leave the miracle to Jesus.

Sermon – The Baptism of Jesus

Liz made a comment on the way out that as a teacher an object lesson – i.e. a real baptism – would have been nice. I had to say a whole hearted yes.

Just a couple of stray thoughts. For many of us, remembering our baptism does two things – 1) it draws us toward our family and the community of God and 2) it points us in the right direction for living. For many of us were baptized as infants. Not being baptist, a rememberance of baptism immediately directs us to parents or grandparents or elders in the church. We are reliant upon them to tell us, yes you are baptized. We are reliant upon the church to be the people of God and remember who has been brought into the family. That is not a bad thing to remember that there is a corporate entity – the church – that has a role to play in our lives. It is not just us alone or me and my personal Jesus. Remembering baptism also points us in the right direction in that while the sacrament is a once for all act, the life it enables is an ongoing thing. Luther’s small catechism would say, “it indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned…” When we live the Christian life we are baptized each day or each hour when we recognize our shortcomings, but most importantly when we see the way through the water that Jesus sanctified.

Sermon – Luke 2:40-52 – Pondering Growth

I need to ask forgiveness from the Saturday service attendees. I had written the sermon and ran through it and thought good – or probably more closer – the in-laws are at home, there is a football game on, I’ve been thinking about these other presentations, and my head is in that game and those presentations and not this sermon right now. Only when really delivering did all the obvious problems creep out. It needed a couple of more dry runs.

I got it updated by Sunday morning. The sermon linked to in the Wordle is that Sunday morning sermon. But that does not help the Saturday group who got a much more muddled presentation.

Two key ideas: 1) Jesus’ life was one of growth through submission, the ultimate example of losing your life only to find it and 2) we just aren’t good at seeing those growth opportunities, but God loved us anyway. God loved us enough to submit to our cross. Jesus submitted where we could not, and so He is the the one directing growth from the right hand of the Father. Next time you feel growth stalled or advance stopped, take and second to look at Jesus and what does He want you to submit to in order to grow?

Sermon – Luke 1:26-38 – Mary replied I am the slave of the Lord

Underware. That is the term for too much sermon prep work actually making it into the sermon. That was what this one was. There is a really good 700 word meditation at the end, preceeded by 700 words that should not have made it into the final draft.

It is not that the first 700 words are bad. They helped the preacher in understanding and picking that one thread to tug on, but the hearers did not have to hear that.

This was the Sunday of the children’s Christmas service. The older tradition was that the Christmas Eve was the Children’s pageant. In our hurried world we cancel Christmas Day, mvoe the kids to Advent 4 and Christmas Eve becomes the Christmas worship. So, the kids – who are like the old Hollywood saying about being in a movie with kids or animals – don’t – they do two things. 1) They are so cute that anything after them is wasted breath. 2) Congregations are either packed or empty for the kids program. I’ll leave you to think why that is so. What used to be done over three hours or three services (Advent 4, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day) with the time to actually think about the day and its events is done in one day.

I can’t help but think that might be a problem. It says something about a lack of communion in the body of Christ – especially if your congregation falls on the empty side. When 51 of 52 weeks the kids are banished to the nursery so the adults have their worship and then the adult stays away on the 52 sunday for the kids. Is there a connection between not making time for the Christ child and the fact that most of the children have drifted away from the faith and if not the faith the church?

Advent Sermon – Symbols of Things – Zechariah 3:8

This was the last mid-week sermon. We had been roughly following a chain of OT promises of the messiah. The first grouping was about a savior/prophet. The second group were kingly predictions. The last group was priestly predictions. I didn’t start out with prophet, priest and king, but that was always latent and it became more obvious. It also made sense to work from prophet, a more or less completely fulfilled role, to the king, which is fulfilled but hidden, and end with the priest, which sacrificial respect is fulfilled but the presense of God sense remains.

Like when Paul talks about Faith, Hope and Love with the greatest being love becuase while faith and hope give way to knowing love will remain, two of the roles of prophet, priest and king will disappear. We will not need a prophet as all will be known. We will not need a priest as God will be with His people and they will have been remade. We will still have a King.

Sermon – Bad Coinage – 1 Thess 5:16-24

After preaching in what is called a lectio continua (a continuous reading) for most of the summer, fall and early winter, the advent texts are herky jerky. One moment you are in Mark and the Next you are in John or Isaiah or Paul. Since I used the Markan text for John the baptist last week (and Mark is the primary Gospel this year), I didn’t jump on the Baptist from John. The Paul text just jumped out at me on second reading. I broke a rule about choosing a text and sticking with it as I changed texts last Tuesday after going not the Baptist again.

I am glad I did. There are many things I like about this sermon. I still wish I was better at merging interesting life stories into sermons, or maybe that is just I wish I was a better storyteller. I’m afraid my sermons too often may come off like lectures. The story I feel best prepared to tell is the biblical story, the story behind the readings. And I am getting more confident in talking about intersections of that story and our modern existence. I think this sermon did that as well as I am able to right now.

Too much of religion is just our own version of oral tradition. We make up laws or only look for laws from religion. Christianity gets reduced to ethics. The resurrection of the Son of God morphs into the Judeo-Christian tradition. That is not what we are waiting for – more tradition or laws. We are waiting for resurrection, the revealing of glory, the kingdom come. Our temporary problems with sin and the old order of things passing away are inconsequential to what the Spirit is working in us and the salvation given through Jesus Christ. Religion is about hope and joy and prayer and thanksgiving. Not about do’s and don’ts.

Advent Mid-week Sermon – The Problems of a King

In the modern world Christians who are looking forward to a coming King have a problem. Christopher Hitchens goes right at that problem. The idea of a King is oppressive in a world of democracies.

Somewhat surprisingly the answer is part affirmation of what Hitchens says – a Holy King is a scary dictator. We are sinful beings. Being judged by the Holy is not what we want. But God has demonstrated his Love for us while we were still cowering in fear. He gave up all the opulence of the best kingdom and tool the lowest rung to show his love. That is love we can trust.

I liked this sermon. If you’ve got 5 mins or have read Hitchens before, give it a click and scan it.

Sermon – Beginnings – Pre-Congregational Meeting Service

The early Jewish Rabbis had a method where a couple of verses or passages from seemingly disconnected placed would be brought together and examined. It would sometimes go in surprising directions. This weeks sermon felt a little like such a midrash. Being primarily a lectionary preacher, one of the goals each week is to smash together the text while being faithful to it with what is happening in life without being trite.

The lectionary is in Advent and the original herald, John the Baptist, gets his two weeks of the church year. If you sit down to read the Gospels as books and not snippets multiple times John is much more important that we think. In the Gospel of Mark, in this text (Mark 1:1-8) John announces the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And that beginning is portrayed in continuity with the past. Isaiah and the prophets tell about this beginning with a voice crying in the desert.

That gets smashed together with the contemplation of the calling of a new minister. The second part of this sermon tried to stay true to the text and to the local context. Both tied together with the call at the end for the outpouring of the spirit. A surprising blessing of a text coming from the lectionary.

Sermon – Matrix Entry – Mark 11:1-10

Short week + tough reading + midweek preps = sermon that sounds like a lecture.

The idea still swirls in my head. I think it also still swirls in the culture. We are all faintly aware that things are not as they seem. Whether that is the sci-fi’ish stuff, or the game of shadows with terrorists or a market losing 40% in a month. If all was as it seemed, then why the corrections? Why would the next President who campaigned on immediate end to Iraq keep the Sec of Def of the despised outgoing administration?

One path is the fever swamps of paranoia and conspiracy theory – don’t go that way. The other path is to realize what the Bible says – we contend not against flesh and blood, but agaist the powers and dominions of the spiritual world. It may look like we are helping a homeless persons, but we are really giving aid to Christ. It may look like we are rich, but we are spiritually poor. It may look like we have everything figured out, and tonight our souls are demanded of us. That slight sense of things are not what they seems is a natural revelation. It should lead us to the written revelation in God’s Word – The Bible. In His Word we find everything we need to know for salvation. The last layer of that is that the only view that really matters is that of the Father which has been revealed to us in the Son, Jesus Christ.

Tough stuff to think about let along act on. Nobody else might be, but I’m glad we left the litany in as the prayer, that we spent more time in prayer. That prayer is incredibly centering. When the sermon was just not up to snuff, the liturgy can be given the load to carry. That prayer carries a huge load.

Thanksgiving Sermon – Luke 17:11-19 – Distance

Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. It usually meant that serious deadline harvest work was done – so Dad might actually be around. It also was just a simple holiday – a turkey, lots of food, some family, some cards and a football game. I guess it felt like a national day to exhale.

We’ve put some distance between that and us. The marketing machine has moved Christmas up – “Black Friday” nips right on the heals of Thanksgiving. Many families live long distances appart. The 100+ person family gatherings of my childhood are long gone. I can’t help but think that some of the distance we put between ourselves and our families is a reflection of the distance between us and God. Part of the mirror of the law.

But thanksgiving is still called for, becuase Jesus has bridged that distance. The thankful leper came running to Jesus’ feet after he was healed. The gap between us and God has been bridged. We can maintain that distance, like the other 9 lepers and run off to the priests – stay with the law, but we also can give thanks for the Gospel. That distance does not have to grow wider.