Sermons

August 14, 2016

Thank you for the opportunity to share today.  I appreciate the chance I had to prepare for this teaching and reflect on my spirituality in the context of this faith community.  This is the first year in the decade that I’ve been attending 8^th Day that I haven’t committed to be a community member.  The reason I didn’t commit was because I was distracted with work and other activities over the last couple of years and I wasn’t keeping up with the disciplines I agreed to practice.  I needed to take a step back and re-examine my priorities.  I do miss a deeper connection with God that comes from practicing spiritual disciplines and I would like tpo draw closer again.

In the lectionary scriptures for today, I found two themes.  They seem to represent bad news and good news for humans.  First, I’ll focus on what seems to be bad news.  In these scriptures, God is a judge and divides people who are faithful from those who are not faithful.

The following is an article, the Complexity of Creation was used by Gerald in his teaching.

Recognizing that Creation and many natural phenomena are clouded in mystery can actually enrich our lives with meaning.

By Rabbi Jonathan Glass

The following article is reprinted with permission from the Orthodox Union.

Every child knows the story of Creation. The Torah gives us a day-by-day account, describing how God, in His omnipotence, benevolently brought forth all that we know--light and darkness, dry land and sea, trees and plants, stars and planets, animal and man.

The text reads so simply and orderly that one is tempted to skim through it to get to the "meat" of the parashah--the story of Adam and Eve. The story of Creation remains an introduction, one that poses little difficulty for believers.

July 31, 2016

Texts: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:18-23; Luke 11:1-4; I Cor 11:23-26

The worship mission group and liturgists have been discussing whether there is too much variety in the words spoken in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  At their request, I want to talk to you about this sacred rite which is at the center of our life as a community.  The best way I see to be helpful is to focus on the meaning of the Lord’s Supper.  If we can get clear about its meaning, I trust the words for celebrating Communion will follow.  Gail Arnall has arranged for discussion today over lunch with liturgists and mission group, and I look forward to that opportunity to work on this together. 

July 24, 2016
Text: Colossians 2:6-19

When I was in my twenties, I identified with what was then called “The Movement.”  It wasn’t exactly definable, but we knew who we were.  It included anti-war activism, simplicity of lifestyle, community, work for justice, and so on.  Integral to it were reflection, critique, energizing and hope.  The movement had a darker side, of course, but—on balance—I believe it was a powerful force for good in our society.   

There is no transcript of Ray's sermon, but you can listen to it or download it.

June 26, 2016
Text: Galatians 5:1,13-25

Paul’s letter to the Galatians reads:

"For freedom Christ has set us free. Do not submit yourselves again to slavery.”

"For you were called for freedom. Do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Serve one another in love. Live by the Spirit."

In the early part of the letter, Paul talks about circumcision.  In the early church one of the tensions going on was between a group called the Judaizers, who were mainly Jewish Christians  wanted to impose Jewish law and practices on Christians at that time, like circumcision. This is one of the earliest recorded tensions in the early Christian church. Paul condemned the Judaizers and this imposition. This became especially a problem when they wanted to evangelize the Gentiles, moving out of the Jewish area and going to the Gentiles to talk about Christ and the gospel. 

June 19, 2016
Hymn: "In Christ There Is No East or West"
Text: Galatians 3:23-29

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

INTRODUCTION

Friday was the first anniversary of the terrible shooting in the Emanuel African American Episcopal Church in Charleston, which took the lives of nine parishioners at a Bible Study. And a week ago, a hate-filled man entered a bar in Orlando, a safe place for the LGBTQ community, and opened fire, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others.

June 12, 2016
Text: Luke 7:36-8:3

This morning’s Gospel lesson shows us once again how fond Jesus seems to be of “dislocation,” how he accepts dislocating situations and people as teaching and learning opportunities.  I don’t know about you, but I prefer my familiar cozy nests, where I can be alone with a good book at the end of a long day.  I think God’s okay with that, within limits, but I also think God has much more in mind for me.  To become ourselves, as much of ourselves as we can become before we die—trusting God more today than we did yesterday—we will need to be, again and again, bounced out of our nest of familiar.  We will only be truly at home when we find that our true home is not in a comfortable and familiar location, or dependent upon certain elements or people, but is actually found in DISlocation, merging into challenging situations with people different from ourselves who have questionable opinions and annoying habits.  These are the people and situations most likely to reveal something new that will help me to grow.

June 5, 2016

Each of the different lectionary scriptures for today bring up a reversal of one thing to its opposite.  Wailing to dancing, mountains to dust, persecutor to persecuted, grief to joy, death to life.  Perhaps God is trying to teach us something about how He works.  I think these extreme examples are used to illustrate the point clearly and obviously; there is no other reasonable explanation for what has happened but that God is at work.

May 29, 2016

Texts:
     Luke 7: 1-10;
     Galatians 1: 1-12
     1 Kings 8: 22-23, esp 41-43

Luke tells us that after preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus came into Capernaum, a village by the Sea of Galilee.  There a centurion, a Gentile soldier in the garrison of the Roman occupiers, comes to tell Jesus about his beloved servant who is near death.  He asks Jesus to heal the servant.  The centurion is probably what Luke calls elsewhere a "God-fearer," a Gentile who respects the God of Judaism.  He has even helped his Jewish neighbors build their synagogue and he obviously has a good relationship with the town’s Jewish elders – rare at the time.  But the centurion says he feels too unworthy to have Jesus come into his house where the servant lies dying.  So he asks his Jewish friends to plead his case to Jesus, a Jew, and they do so willingly, also noteworthy because Jesus is regarded with suspicion by many of his fellow Jews.  Their actions show amazing cultural sensitivity: not knowing Jesus personally, the soldier sends representatives of Jesus' own community to ask on his behalf, and the Jewish leaders seem to be confident enough of Jesus’ power to ask him to heal the sick servant.  And Jesus heals him.  The story has many meanings, but for our purposes this morning I want to point out two.  The first lesson points to the faith of the centurion, a non-Jew.  His faith was so remarkably strong that Jesus exclaims in astonishment, “I have not found such faith even in Israel.”