Sermons

August 7, 2017

Texts:    
      John 10:37-38
      Hebrews 11:1-2,  8-13

John:  ³⁷ Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. ³⁸ But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works,  that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." 
Hebrews 11: Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ² This is what the ancients were commended for.
⁷ By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
⁸ By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹ By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹ And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she^[b] considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹² And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
¹³ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. …….

July 30, 2017

Good morning, 8^th Day.  It has been a long time since I’ve shared my thoughts with you. I would like to talk about some problems that have been going on for long time.  I would like to share a few stories with you because these stories are devastating for me.  Some of these stories I have witnessed and learned about through my life experience.  Some are stories I have learned about by reading, watching Spanish channels and other documentaries.  Some of them have happy ends, some have sad ends, and some feel neutral.  

Today there are three Central American countries that share borders and share many of the same problems.  Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala suffer from poverty, drug trafficking and gangs.

​[[{"fid":"312","view_mode":"media_original","attributes":{"height":130,"width":89,"style":"float: left;margin-right:10px;","class":"media-element file-media-original","data-delta":"1"},"fields":{"format":"media_original","alignment":""},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"media_original","alignment":""}},"link_text":null}]]June 25, 2017

Texts:
    Matthew 10:24-39
    Romans 6:1-11

The lectionary scriptures this week focus mostly on being identified with Jesus, the cost of that way of life, and the life that that brings.  It is described as a way of being made free and alive.  God has a new way of life for us if we can dare to try it out. 

Jesus speaks of this in the Matthew passage.  He is talking to the disciples about what might happen because they’ve chosen to follow him.  He says that he came to break up the cozy little family arrangements that provide stability and security and to free his followers for God.  He adds that if they prefer their family over him they don’t deserve him.  Wow!   That is serious stuff!   Mostly what I think Jesus is referring to here is security of home, lifestyle, and comfort.  However, family also provides community for people.  What Jesus is saying is that they have to be willing to recreate community … to be open to new, unstable, unpredictable ways of living. 

[[{"fid":"235","view_mode":"media_original","attributes":{"height":127,"width":89,"style":"float: left;margin-right:10px;","class":"media-element file-media-original media-wysiwyg-align-left","data-delta":"1"},"fields":{"format":"media_original","alignment":"left"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"media_original","alignment":"left"}},"link_text":null}]]Text: The Book of Acts

As perhaps you've come to expect from me, I will not hew too closely to the lectionary. My sharing this morning instead draws heavily from the new commentary on Acts written by Willie James Jennings. Jennings' first book, The Christian Imagination: Theology and The Origins of Race, traces the collusion of the Christian story with colonial modernity, and points toward a recovery of the lived reality of faith through a deep joining to the people and places around us in ways that exceed territory, property, and even preconceived identity. Shaping our vision for the renewed Potter's House, it helped us to articulate that the core of our mission is to bring people together who are different from one another--and to trust that good will grow from such unlikely and uncommon joining. By some tellings, this is the story of The Potter's House all along.

The question I want to wrestle with today is at its root quite simple. And yet it is one that answered in the affirmative could change everything. Do we belong to one another? Let me ask that one more time--do we belong to one another? 

June 11, 2017
Text: Luke 16: 19-31

The Gospel reading from Luke 16 is a story you may well have heard before of the rich man and Lazarus.  We read about a rich man who lived in luxury, nice clothes, and a big house; he feasted sumptuously every day and never wanted for anything. 

At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus (interesting that “Lazarus” means “God Helps” and he is the only person that Jesus ever names in any of his parables).  He’s not only poor, he’s also sick and covered with sores: dogs would come and lick his sores. 

So, shockingly for the listeners, who would have identified with the rich man, when Lazarus dies, he goes to be with Abraham in heaven. 

The rich man dies and goes to Hades where is he tormented.  He sees Lazarus with Abraham, he realizes he’s screwed up and it’s too late and he says, “have pity on me…,” but there are no second chances.  So he says “Please go warn my brothers…” but the answer is if they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, how is it possible that they can be convinced (“get it”) even if someone comes back from the dead?

Humility is not one of my core competencies.  Those who have known me well over the years will certainly attest to that.  Of the many acts of amazing grace with which I have been blessed over the past few years, the most impactful have been the situations in which God has put me where I had no choice to be humble, and, as a part of that, to let go of my dependence on my hard-headed self and surrender to God’s will for me and my work in my life.

So it is that I stand here amid yet another opportunity to be humble.  When I accepted Gail’s invitation to speak today, I once again did so without checking the calendar.  I do believe that Call is involved in both the Worship Mission Group’s offering of opportunities to bring the teaching and our acceptance of them, but that doesn’t mean that I was not daunted when I realized that June 4 was Pentecost—one of the two most important Sundays in the Christian calendar—and even further daunted (to the point of intimidation) when I realized that Pentecost is also recommitment Sunday,  the most important Sunday in the life of the 8^th Day Community.  I feel both completely undeserving of the honor of standing before you on this most holy day, but also, as a spiritual midget amongst spiritual giants, completely inadequate for the task of delivering a meaningful message on this day of all days.

May 14, 2017
Text: Matthew 25:31-46

Over the last several months since the election, many of us have been exploring, in one way or another, how best to respond to our new political reality.  Our many teachings here on the subject may have seemed like beating a dead horse; some of us are thinking maybe it's time to move on, but I want to suggest that this unprecedented political and social situation is complex enough a moral issue with so many spiritual dimensions that it's important to continue our explorations of possibilities.  I hope these next twenty minutes can help.

Let me begin, somewhat paradoxically, by looking at the term "holiness," which Fred brought to our attention several weeks ago and continued to look at during the retreat last week.

April 30, 2017

Texts:
     Luke 24: 13-35
     Acts 2: 4a, 36-41

Luke, a Gentile, is sharing his account of Jesus’ life and death and has just described how the women had seen the tomb with the stone rolled away and two men with clothes that gleamed like lightening were there and told them that Jesus had risen. When they faithfully return to the apostles and tell them what they have seen and heard, in typical sexist perspective of men at that time, the men do not believe the women. “Their words seemed to them like nonsense.” Peter who must have wondered if it was a possibility that Jesus was raised from the dead, runs to the tomb but only sees the cloths rolled up that had wrapped Jesus’ body. Does his lack of faith cause him to not see any messengers or hear what has happened to Jesus, as the women had? He has to wonder what has happened.

April 16, 2017

Text: John 20:1-18[i]

When I accepted the invitation to share this morning, a phrase kept coming to me, to the tune of a Billy Joel song:  "I'm in a Resurrection State of Mind."[ii]  At first I was amused at my own silliness.  But then I started to wonder what does that mean? What is a Resurrection State of Mind anyway?  1 Corinthians 2:16, tells us that, as believers, we "have the mind of Christ,” meaning that we are to order our thinking, our inner lives, according to Christ's example.  In turn, putting on the mind of Christ leads to actions that are also ordered in accordance with Christ’s example, and God's desire.  If we submit ourselves to the lordship of Christ, both Romans 6:4 and Colossians tells us that we are both buried and raised with Christ.  Here's what Colossians 2:12-13 says:

12  And having been buried with Christ in baptism, you were raised with Christ through your faith in the power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 13When you were dead in your trespasses and ... your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.