Sermons

February 3, 2019

Texts:
     Jeremiah 1: 4-10
     Psalm 71: 1-6
     Luke 4: 21-30
     1 Corinthians: 1-13

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be acceptable inour sight, oh God our rock, redeemer, and friend.

A little over eight years ago, something very unusual and unexpected happened to me. I, 21 year-old lifelong skeptic, walked into an evangelical megachurch in Cape Town, South Africa, and had a very sudden and cathartic spiritual awakening.

This experience has become a touchstone for me. It's an experience I cherish and go back to often in my own mind. Many of us have a few singular experiences in life where we really felt God's love and everything became suddenly clear. But these moments of grace, where God reveals himself to us in an unmistakably clear way, are very rare. What I really want to talk about today is what 8th Day has made possible for me: which is to turn a moment of faith into a journey of faith. Moments of revelation are wonderful and important; but what is just as important, if not more so, is what we do after that moment of revelation.

January 27, 2019

Texts:      
     Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
     Psalm 19: 8,9,10,15
     Corinthians 12:12-30
     Luke 4:14-21

"Today the scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing"...

I don't know about you, but if I was sitting in that synagogue (not that I would have been able to say anything as a woman), I would have thought to myself "Who does this guy think he is?  Seems like a pretty cocky and bold statement to me...'scripture being fulfilled in him.'"

How did he say this?  And not just to anyone, but to the people of his home town, the people who saw him through every human year growing up, including those pesky hormonal teenage years we conveniently know nothing about. 

It seems to me that the only way that it was possible for Jesus to feel so confident in his calling, would be through community.  Deep communion with the Holy Spirit and his Abba gave him the confidence to name and be certain of his calling to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free.  Even in the times he must have been uncertain of this call, he could rely on the certainty of his Abba and that love/spirit between them, not to mention the support and sense of belonging he received from his family.  You don't grow up with a Mama who said the words of the Magnificat and not learn at least some sense of your call.

December 30, 2018
Texts:
     1 Samuel 2:18-20 and 26
     Psalm 148
     Luke 2:41-52

Merry Christmas!   I feel especially grateful to be sharing the teaching with you all today in this Christmas season.  We have come through the time of waiting and expectation and now we get to honor and hold up Jesus’ birth and growth as a young adolescent.  We can also reflect on the growth and newness that we see in and around ourselves, and praise God for it!   This is a time for witnessing, praising, and recognizing the broader story of life that we are a part of.  The lectionary scriptures for this week are a wonderful guide for our reflection on this season. 

The 1st Samuel passage gives us little bits of the story of Samuel as a young boy serving in the temple.  Samuel ministered in the temple and wore a linen ephod, which was a tunic-like garment worn by the high priest.  His mother and father (Hannah and Elkanah) visit the temple once a year for the annual sacrifice and Hannah gives Samuel the robe that she has made for him.  Eli blesses Hannah and Elkanah for giving Samuel to the priests/temple.  The passage skips several verses and we get verse 26, “And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.”

Texts:
     Luke 1:26-56
     Hebrews 10:5- 10

Merry Christmas!   Those words at one time brought to mind the good news of God sending his son as our savior.  He came into a world divided between outsiders and insiders, and in the ministry of Jesus that division was overcome.  With Jesus there were no outsiders unless one chooses to be.  This is what the carol "Joy to the World" is saying.  The Lord is come.  Happy birthday, Jesus.  Happy day, world, because of the gift of Jesus. 

Today I am working with two themes taken from the lectionary scriptures in Luke 1 and Hebrews 10.  What stands out in Mary's story is her emphatic "yes" to the invitation of the Holy Spirit to be the mother of the incarnation of the Word of God in human flesh.  In saying "yes," she was given the vision to see what this meant: scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things – to Abraham and all his descendants forever; and Mary' reception of what this was going to cost as spoken by the prophet Simeon: "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too."

Texts:

Luke 3: 17-18
Zephaniah 3:1-4
Philippians 4: 4-7
Isaiah 12:2-6

I feel like each of my teachings begins with the saga of how I got to this point.  But, in this case, I do feel it is relevant to my message.

When David Dorsey gave me the choice of several Sundays to bring the teaching and I picked this Sunday in December, I did so without first looking at the lectionary or stopping to think which of the Advent Sundays it was.   I was excited once I realized that it was the "joy" Sunday, as I often feel joy.  How hard could it be to talk about something with which one is familiar, right?

Wrong.  As I began to think more about joy in the context of this community and the state of the world, I realized how problematic it is to try and tackle this subject even in the midst of a holiday season that is supposed to be all about "joy".  As I thought about the emotion of joy, I realized that the factors allowing me to feel joy are fairly unique and that others have a much more difficult time finding or feeling joy.  I realized that my ability to frequently feel joyful was due to two things:

December 2, 2018

Texts:
     Voice, Isaiah 61: 1
     New Living Trans.,  Luke 4: 15-21
     Contemporary English version, Joel 2:28

Is this a good time at the beginning of Advent to look at anything to do with slavery?

The Isaiah scripture lays the foundation.  Centuries later, When the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the very One they have been waiting for, the dialogue between the two expresses the unique impact of the Messiah who is about to arrive.

When Jesus begins His ministry with the Isaiah prophecy, He affirms how He fulfills scripture by His pronouncement: “in this Day, in this place, I fulfill the scripture right before you!”

Yes, setting prisoners free was a powerful sign of the Awaited Messiah.

What struck me most about the scriptures for today is that they offer a stark contrast between parallel choices about how to live.  On one side, we can live committed to a free-will and faithful relationship with God.  In his book Come Out My People, Wes Howard-Brook would call this a life embracing the “religion of creation,” which is “grounded in the experience of and, ongoing relationship, with God the Creator, leading to a covenantal bond between that God and God’s people for the blessing and abundance of all people and all creation.” 

Alternatively, we can live according to the tenets of what Wes has called the “religion of empire.”  Wes describes this religion as “sometimes claiming to be grounded in that same God, [but it] is actually a human invention used to justify and legitimize attitudes and behaviors that provide blessing and abundance for some at the expense of others.”  According to Wes, the ideas of both the religion of creation and the religion of empire are present in the bible, woven together as contrasting threads of the same story of humanity in search of God.

November 11, 2018

Texts:
     Luke 15:11-32
     Romans 5:15-17

A month ago Gail talked here about “amazing grace.” Today I’d like to follow up on her teaching by sharing with you what I find not only amazing but also so disturbing about grace.  I’d like to suggest that God’s grace is so startling that none of us really believes it, especially when it comes to ourselves.  We talk about grace, we may even teach about grace, but when it comes down to it, we really can’t believe it.  In fact, in some ways, I don’t think we even want to believe it.

Let’s remember that grace is always available to us.  It doesn’t depend on how major the sin is, how sorry we are, whether we make amends, or whether we even want that grace.  God always offers grace, that is, God always forgives and never holds it against us.  Whether we can believe it, accept it and make it real for us.is a different question

October 28, 2018

Bartimaeus Story played out at beginning of sermon

Crowd1, Crowd2, and Bartimaeus, blindfolded are facing the congregation along the side of the road (by the side of the altar) while Disciple 1, Disciple 2, and Jesus are walking along slowly the road with Jesus in the middle and do not notice the conversation until the second time Bartimaeus shouts)

Disciple 1 - Look, you guys! I am finally seeing the road out of Jericho and toward Jerusalem!

Disciple 2 - I will be really glad to get away from this crowd.  It is a miracle no one has begged you for healing, Jesus!