Previous Sermons 2001-2
Christmas
2002
Christmas is about birth, about leaving the warmth and protection
of the womb and going out into the world, willing to confront all the world might
throw. “Fear Not!”, The angels exclaim to all of us ready to be born.
Fear not, for the light of a new star still shines. Come closer, and let go. Take
on the risk of bearing the message of Christmas. Take a risk to discover the new
birth of God within you and among you.
Sunday, December 15, 2002
Advent is saying beware. This is not
a time when it is expected that people of faith will get everything in place before
Christmas. This may be the message urged by the world, but it is not the good
news of the Gospel. The beautiful announcements of angels to the future mother
of John and Jesus were a surprise and certainly disconcerting. If you are so comfortable
and satisfied that everything for you is in place for Jesus' birth, you are probably
in serious denial.
Sunday, December 8, 2002
Today on the second Sunday of Advent,
we are introduced again to John the Baptist. While according to the Gospel of
Luke, John and Jesus were born only a few months apart, John always seems much
older. John preached repentance, change of heart, and a rigorous self-examination
to a people that had been beaten down by the cruel forces of history for centuries.
For generations, God had seemed to be silent. Weary of being offered manipulative
schemes in place of vision, they came to John in the state of being profoundly
depressed. What did John do? John warned them to repent! Yet his message was so
popular, so eagerly received, that crowds flocked to hear him. They took his preaching
as good news.
Sunday, December
1, 2002
We put a door on the bulletin for Advent because none
of our doors at St. John's are tight fitting. They are cracked and warped, with
plenty of space for the wind to get through. They are hard to close and difficult
to keep locked. They are weathered by tradition and have been through many a storm
of life. Maybe that in and of itself is a helpful symbol of how a church should
be. God's love is always open and never sealed. God is indeed seeking to enter
closed doors and find space in over-full hearts. Advent for the church is really
a season of old doors that rattle, shiver and shudder as the Holy Spirit breathes
new life into the longing and empty spaces of our world.
Thanksgiving
Day 2002
None of us gets through life with any healthy sense
of contentment solely on what we have, or get to keep, or have been able to take.
We get through life by the grace of the gifts that have been shared with us, and
by the gifts we have shared with others. Genuine thanksgiving is never about taking
stock and counting what we have. Thanksgiving, whether the one at Plymouth centuries
ago or one today in Ithaca, is about appreciation for the continual revelation
of what has been shared among us.
Sunday,
November 17, 2002
Jesus and his disciples didn't live in Buffalo,
but if they did, undoubtedly some of the disciples would have known how to bolt
on a plow, change a belt on a snow blower, and have hands that smelled of gasoline.
God gives us gifts and how we choose to recognize, accept, or use them, is up
to us. The parable of the talents is a parable about judgment while at the same
time saying something about stewardship. God is a giver and true gratitude never
runs out. It will seem as if we are given a fresh supply each day. In one sense
gratitude is like a muscle. The more we exercise muscles and practice gratitude,
the healthier we become. However, those who are resentful, suspicious or envious
of God's grace will all believe that they have enough. Gifts, where there is no
gratitude, will always seem inadequate. Fear will whittle away even what they
have. It doesn't matter whether it is talents or snow blowers.
Sunday, November 10, 2002
This past summer at choir camp,
members of our youth choir learned a cantata about Noah and the great flood. I
would like to think that they and all the rest of us occasionally look up at the
ceiling and see the hull of a great ship, an ark that saves us from drowning in
the angry sea of the world's chaos.
Sunday, November 3, 2002
We who live in a four season climate,
and are tough enough to enjoy hearty New York winters might compare saints to — icebergs. Not that saints are cold and hard, but like the bulk of an iceberg,
the bulk of discipleship runs deep and is not always apparent. Like an iceberg,
people of faith release fresh water in the midst of an undrinkable sea. Like an
iceberg, saints float in the world, from place to place and the prayers, acts
of kindness, and compassionate support we offer others is, to a great extent,
underneath the flat superficial appearances. Icebergs have depth, like people
of faith have soul.
Sunday,
October 27, 2002
Outside the Biblical record, there developed a long
tradition of combining the command to love God with the love of neighbor. In a
very popular commentary of the time titled the "Testament of the Twelve
Patriarchs", there were numerous references to loving God and your neighbor
with a specific exhortation "but love God and your neighbor and show compassion
for the poor and weak." The rabbi Gamaliel, a contemporary of Jesus and a
former teacher of Paul used to claim that he could recite the whole meaning of
the law standing on one foot. When one challenged him to perform such a seemingly
impossible task, he would thunder, "love the Lord your God and love your
neighbor as yourself."
Sunday, October 20, 2002
In one sense, our ministry at St. John's
is like a mining operation. With piles of tailings all around us, it is easy to
get discouraged. We may have to sift though tons of dirt and rock, but God isn't
in the business of looking for dirt, but of uncovering and releasing our best
selves, of freeing humanity from dark underground chambers of recrimination and
despair. Like geologists, people of faith learn to look at the hard and seemingly
impenetrable rock differently. In one sense the Holy Spirit beckons us to go on
a treasure hunt.
Sunday,
October 13, 2002
Jesus'
story for this week seems to follow the same general theme as the previous week.
A king issues an invitation to his son's wedding feast, but incredibly the invitation
is scorned. When additional servants are sent out to assure those of the sincerity
of the invitation, the invitation is not only ridiculed, but the messengers of
the invitation are mistreated and murdered. Obviously this has become no ordinary
story.
Sunday, October 6, 2002
Vineyard planters have always been the
most patient of people. If one is an impatient gardener, they grow zucchini in
the summer and chia pets in the winter, but only a very forward looking person
plants a new vineyard. Even today with the benefit of agricultural science, it
often is twenty years or more from the planting to a decent harvest of grapes.
Needless to say, twenty years in Biblical times was nearly a lifetime. Hence,
the image of God planting a vineyard implied that God placed confidence in humanity's
long term future; that humanity could live in peace; and that the process, however
frustrating at times, was well worth the wait.
Sunday, September 29, 2002
The Bible is not an old textbook.
It is a living Bible. It gives life as we apply ourselves to the hard task, not
of simply repeating old answers, but insisting on and valuing continuing questions.
If I am satisfied and complacent with my present understanding, I am like the
son who says," Yes, I will follow Jesus into the vineyard", but never
moves in that direction. Following implies movement; it implies not being content
with our feet planted in the same spot for very long. That is why I'd like to
think the parable of the two sons reflects a tension within us that is not yet
resolved.
Sunday, September
22, 2002
Most of us come to realize the presence of God in our lives
in varying degrees of intensity over sundry seasons. The Good News is that with
God it is never too late or hopeless. The window of the Holy Spirit does not have
a closing hour. There are no time restrictions on God's grace. God never gives
second best. That is why God, even at 11:30 at night, serves a full course dinner,
and never a cold sandwich and a dill pickle, and never twice melted ice cream.
Sunday, September 15, 2002
It is tempting to speak of our time
as a watershed of change for the church and our society. We think we are living
during a time when American society has been changed forever. In a sense that
may be partly true, but there is also a great danger in how we interpret that
perception. There is an insidious virus of human pride that always wants to place
us in the center of human history, that wants to make our needs and aspirations
the only legitimate and ultimate measure in initiating momentous decisions affecting
the history of humanity. Beware, the Bible warns us, of letting self-righteousness
and pride get out of control
Sunday, September 8, 2002
Last week a parishioner gave me a page
from one of those "thought for the day calendars". This particular calendar
had thoughts for dads and the thought for this one day was a story about a young
boy who was having trouble telling the truth. So the family joined a church and
enrolled the child in Sunday School. After the first class, he was asked what
he had learned, and the boy eagerly replied that the class had learned about Moses
and how Moses was trapped on the shore of the Red Sea with all the tribes of Israel,
but that just in time they found some canoes and escaped. The father shook his
head and said, "Now son, that's not what they taught you." The boy meekly
answered, "I know, but I knew you'd never believe the other story!"
That is precisely the trouble for people of faith. Most of the pivotal stories
in the Bible are really unbelievable. Yet the effect of these unbelievable stories
yields unbelievable courage, strength, and blessing.
Sunday, September 1, 2002
I have always liked the particular
passage that was read for the Gospel today because it is a good antidote for a
portrait of Jesus as soft, soupy, never getting angry and always having a weak,
indulgent smile on his face. Jesus has been putting the disciples through some
intense teaching, yet Peter, and presumably all the other disciples, as well,
still don't get it. Jesus gets really frustrated. "Auug! Peter, what is the
matter with you? Can't you comprehend the new reality I am offering the world?
Can't you free yourself from old, tired, tragic and cruel ways? I have just given
you an example of being a keeper of keys so that you will not think of yourself
as a jailer, but as one who unlocks God's grand vision of a universal commonwealth.
Sunday, August 25, 2002
Seems to be a whole lot of “rocks” in the readings this morning. And finding them in the lections takes me off on
a memory trip to Adirondacks from which I recently returned, having missed last
year.
Sunday, August 18,
2002
The Gospel for today is heavy with the weight of tradition, customs
and social norms. The specific practices of food preparation, diet and with whom
one was willing to eat were major issues for Jews and early Christians. Many of
the customs reflected humanitarian concerns for the proper care and respect for
the life of livestock and honoring that sense in the butchering and dressing of
meat. The Biblical dietary laws and the temple authorities who oversaw them were
ancient precursors of SPCA's, cooperative extensions, and departments of health.
Sunday, July 28, 2002
Jesus talks about the grace of God in terms
of something that you save and cultivate. Even if it doesn't seem to fit right
away, you don't toss it out, for there is wisdom in holding on to it. For there
may come a day when that odd piece in your life that did not seem to fit or was
even a bit annoying or irritating, becomes that right piece and is the missing
shape that you need to complete what has been a hole or puzzle in your life. There
may come a time when you are fortunate to have in your tool box a screw of the
precise diameter and length to connect loose parts of your life together again.
Sunday,
July 21, 2002
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu is fond of saying that God created us not because God needed us,
but because God wanted us. We are chosen people because God chose to love us,
not because we are superior to someone else. Israel was chosen by God to spread
the knowledge of God's love throughout all nations, not to keep it for themselves.
In the world God intended, we are all desired children. God loves creation, and
creation includes all of us living on this earth. Often it is obviously not self-evident
that God loves us, and that is why the community of faith always faces a challenge.
Sunday, July 14, 2002
The
parable of the sower is a pivotal story in the Gospels of Luke and Mark, as well
as Matthew. In Mark and Matthew it introduces the largest collection of Jesus'
parables. The Greek word for parable is from the verb meaning "to set side
by side". Hence it is reasonable to think that one can compare every detail
of Jesus' story with a deeper meaning. However, in Jesus' culture and in the wider
Biblical tradition, the word parable was also used for a story whose meaning was
not readily apparent. The story was intended as an intellectual riddle that was
to tease the mind into a much broader insight. Just as Jesus' teaching of how
God operated in the world has many dimensions to it, so too the story of the sower
stimulates our mind to comprehend more than one meaning and to respond to the
Good News in all its complexity.
Sunday
, July 7, 2002
The
week of choir camp brought it all back again. Most of the campers were already
swimming. It was a hot and perfect day to be in the lake. I went down to the shore,
sat on the cement bulkhead and tested the water. It was cold! I remember years
ago, sitting at the side of the school swimming pool. Most all of my classmates
were in the water, but I was afraid to plunge into the deep. I knew all my swimming
strokes and there was no reason to doubt that I could swim, but I didn't trust
myself in water over my head. It was awful. Everyone around me having fun, urging
me to jump in, and I just couldn't.
Sunday, June 23, 2002
A story
from Jewish folklore claims that the act of creation did not end with the making
of Adam and Eve. Rather, creation began with them. God gave the first woman and
man and all their descendants the great gift of always being able to begin again.
The privilege to initiate a new world is God's alone, but the ability to begin
again in the world into which they are born is given to humanity. We do so every
time we choose to side with the living, denying the forces of death that urge
us to back away from change and when we choose to hope in the future over the
despairing siren of resignation.
Sunday,
June 16, 2002
"Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?",
God asks Abraham and Sarah. Note that this sentence ends not as a statement, but
as a question. It is always the fundamental question posed for people of faith.
The Bible is a book noted for stories within stories. Sometimes this reflects
the many and very different stands of tradition over a great period of time; other
times it indicates the remarkable skill of the compilers and editors, and often
it is a combination of both. For the generations after them, Abraham and Sarah
served as models of consistent and dauntless faith. However, the particular passage
from the book of Genesis read this morning, is really about the couples' lack
of faith, if not open disbelief.
Sunday,
June 9, 2002
The
tax collector whom Jesus invites to be a disciple, the daughter whose father thinks
is dead, and the woman with a long suffering illness all have something significantly
in common. They all are high risk people. Any ministry to them would be highly
likely to end in failure or result in criticism or derision of anyone who tried.
An attempt to demonstrate that they were within the circle of God's grace would
be playing against high odds.
Sunday,
June 2, 2002
There
is an old story about a teacher who guided his disciples up a high mountain to
spend the night. They camped far above the tree line, and when the sun went down,
they were surrounded by a cosmic silence as uncountable stars filled the dark
dome of heaven overhead. They were curious if there would be any sounds during
the night, so they pressed the record button on a tape recorder before they retired.
When they returned to the retreat house, they replayed the tape. There was not
a sound, but their teacher exclaimed, "don't you hear it?'. "Hear what?"
"The moon in its appointed course, keeping time with the harmony of galaxies
in motion", replied the teacher.
Sunday,
May 26, 2002
The text of the creation story read today dates from
the sixth century, BCE. By that time, the nation of Israel had been overrun, Jerusalem
destroyed, and a portion of the people had been taken into exile in Babylon. It
looked as if the gods of Babylon controlled the earth and its future. Yet those
who edited and composed this beautiful saga, claimed, not so! Only God is the
creator and giver of life. The world may appear to be under the power of Babylon,
but ultimately that will change and prove to be a delusion.
Sunday,
May 19, 2002
At
the time of Jesus, the feast of Pentecost had become a celebration of God's ancient
agreement with the people of Israel as they camped at the foot of Mount Sinai,
having been liberated from slavery in Egypt. It was a thanksgiving festival commemorating
God's gift and the occasion to honor the memory of Moses who served as the mediator
between God and Israel. Incorporated in this formative agreement was God's promise
to be faithful to Israel and for Israel to model a society through which God's
blessings would be made known to all people.
Sunday,
May 12, 2002
This period of Easter tide is telling us that God's presence
is indeed very close; in such periods of birth, change and challenge, is often
precisely the time God may touch us is special ways. Disciples of the resurrection,
followers of the living Christ, always find futures opening with no definite instructions.
Sunday, May 05, 2002
We are coming to the end of the Easter
season. This Thursday we will celebrate Ascension Day, remembering when Jesus
informed the disciples that henceforth he would be present with them in a new
way and soon the gift of the Holy Spirit would be revealed among them. This past
week, public television showed a documentary of three families who for five months
attempted to live as homesteaders did on the Montana prairie in the 1880's. While
the program was a good comprehensive picture of life at that time, one factor
that it did not cover was the role that faith played in most of the homesteaders'
lives. At every crossroads, where a general store and school house were built,
inevitably there was also a simple clapboard church.
Sunday,
April 28, 2002
Today's passage in John's Gospel occurs following the
last supper. Shortly Jesus and the disciples would leave for the garden where
during the night Jesus would be arrested. The disciples are emotionally exhausted.
Holy Week has given then more experiences than they can possibly process and comprehend.
Thomas bravely asks Jesus for assurance. Jesus does not disappoint, but offers
words that return again and again to generations of followers
Sunday, April 14, 2002
The book of Genesis contains the
ancient tale of God who in the guise of three strangers, approached the camp of
Sarah and Abraham. True to ancient custom of the desert, the strangers were received
with the utmost hospitality, and a substantial meal was prepared. Time had not
been kind to Abraham and Sarah. God had promised them a large family. Yet as the
years went by and they moved from place to place with their flocks, the promise
of many descendants grew dim. The desert becomes lonely and dangerous when there
are no future generations to take your place.
Sunday, April 07, 2002
The
lessons immediately after Easter remind us that the resurrection was not like
a shot of powerful emotional euphoria that gave the early disciples a permanent
mountain top experience, complete with mental clarity and unambiguous purpose.
The presence of the living Jesus among them, came and went. Appreciation for what
had happened during the traumatic events of Holy Week and God's raising of Jesus
from the dead, was a gradual, not an instant process.
Easter Sunday, March 31, 2002
Easter has a dynamism
of constant, practically breathless motion. It is a story of earthquakes shaking
the ground, of a heavy stone rolling away and two women who went to mourn the
dead being told "The body of the one you seek is not here, Alleluia, he is
risen! Now get out of here and go quickly, tell the other disciples, Jesus is
alive, and will be going ahead awaiting you in Galilee."
Palm
Sunday, March 24, 2002
They
had hoped so much in Jesus. Recently things hadn't gone quite the way they had
anticipated, but the entrance into Jerusalem seemed to signal a change in the
air. The momentum seemed to shift in Jesus' favor. People coming for Passover
were interested in learning more about this rabbi from Galilee. They began cheering,
joining the procession and thronged the parade. Palms, traditionally used to represent
the tree of life and used by the prophet Isaiah as a symbol of royal authority,
began waving in the air. "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name
of David." The shouts rose high off the stone buttresses of the city's walls,
reverberating through the streets and up into the windows of the governor. It
looked as if Jesus would not be cheated of his triumph after all.
Sunday,
March 17, 2002
John arranged his Gospel around seven great signs,
signs of God' grace that Jesus in his ministry revealed. While today's Gospel
reading was likely based on a specific incident, we know at the onset that John
has reworked and woven it thick with many symbolic threads. It is not just a story
about Jesus' relationship with a family of Bethany; it is about God's relationship
with us.
Sunday,
March 10, 2002
Samuel
would have never seen David if he hadn't listened and paid heed
to God's prodding, and kept his own fear in check. The man who was born blind
would never have discovered Jesus if he had been convinced by the fears of so
many of those around him. In the same way, I suspect that we who think ourselves
so sophisticated, become aware of wonderful new possibilities in our midst and
make wise choices to the extent we choose the call of the Holy Spirit over the
voice of the world's fear.
Sunday,
March 3, 2002
The longest continuous story outside of the passion
accounts, is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. A woman comes to the
well about noon. Virtually everyone would have come to draw water in the early
morning to have water to begin the day, but this woman comes at an unusual time.
Perhaps out of shame or guilt she wanted to avoid the reproach of others; we don't
know. Yet Jesus has been waiting there as if he knew this was the only time she
would appear. He initiates a conversation, again an unconventional act for a man
to ask a strange woman something, much less for a Jew to ask a Samaritan.
Sunday,
February 24, 2002
In John's Gospel it is strongly implied that Nicodemus
becomes a disciple. Nicodemus initially came to Jesus under the cover of night,
yet, I wonder if by dawn, Nicodemus saw the light on another level. I can well
understand why it wouldn't be reported. It was not something two rabbis would
normally do. I wonder if in the early morning when no one would see them, Jesus
and Nicodemus slipped out to the local playground. Together Jesus and Nicodemus
rode a seesaw, and Nicodemus experienced a fresh glimpse of God's kingdom.
Sunday, February 17, 2002
Jesus' 40 days and nights in the
desert parallels Moses' 40 days and nights on Mount Sinai before he received the
ten commandments. Both Moses and Jesus had been identified and chosen for an important
ministry that lay in the future. On Ash Wednesday, we entered into the season
of Lent, a time of preparation and a period of 40 days that culminates in the
final week in Jerusalem.
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Today we read
Matthew's account of what is termed the transfiguration. Three of the disciples
go up a mountain with Jesus and there they catch a glimpse of their journey ahead.
It was probably Mt. Tabor with a stunning view of the Galileean countryside. An
account of the transfiguration is always read the Sunday before Lent. After today
we will take down the last vestiges of the celebration of Epiphany. If you haven't
done so, it's time to take your dried out balsam wreath off the front door. Lent
concentrates on the intense challenge of learning how to live in this world.
Sunday, February 3, 2002
Jesus does
not give advice on we ought to do in order to gain divine favor. Jesus does not
invite us to become poor so that God will bless us, but He does want us to know
that the poor are not excluded from God's blessing. Indeed, there is something
important we all need to learn about the condition of poverty. Those who have
experienced emptiness or have an awareness of their need, have something that
proud, independent and self-reliant egos lack. Many of us are very good at giving,
but don't quite know how to receive.
Sunday, January 27, 2002
What Matthew wanted his church to remember
as they faced plenty of struggles ahead was: Remember those times of exhilarating
insight and joy when you knew God was present and your life shone with radiance
of God's love. Those memories will carry you through until the Holy Spirit breaks
through the clouds, and comes again like another dawn.
Sunday,
January 20, 2002
"Great things are they that you have done, O
Lord, my God! How great your wonders and your plans for us." This verse seems
to tie together the stories of Isaiah and the vision of a great mission; Paul
and the Church at Corinth; Jesus, John the Baptist, and his two disciples. Throughout
history, God is always expecting the best for us.
Sunday,
January 13, 2002
God has not stopped giving us gifts, or stopped tossing
them out far beyond our faith circle. If Peter, the rather plain, unimaginative
fisherman, can have one of the wildest dreams of the whole Bible, and understand
it not as a nightmare, but as a wonderful vision of things to come, so we too,
can dream, and understand the future and expansion of God's blessings as opportunity.
Sunday,
January 6, 2002
If your Christmas or the start of the new year has
not turned out as you had wished; if you feel you're in a rut or have not moved
as fast and as far as you had hoped, accept the gift of the magi. Epiphany becomes
the sign that God is present among those who are stuck, like Mary and Joseph,
in places they would prefer not to be. Epiphany is the star that shines among
us when from time to time we are threatened by numerous and various types of Herods,
and flee along unfamiliar or lonely roads.
Christmas
2001
The Biblical record makes it clear that Christmas is not about
who has home field advantage. If the birth of Jesus among us isn't in some way
good news for all people, especially non-Christians, we had better rethink the
genuineness of our message.
Sunday, December 16, 2001
Often, especially as we get older,
we anticipate Christmas with a premonition of dread. Today, Jesus' questions could
not have come at a better time. What are we preparing for, what do we expect to
find? Do we initially fear a monster, a giant, or a ghost to haunt us and do us
harm? Advent is a season of reversals when the usual and cruel ways of the world
are questioned, rearranged, or overturned.
Sunday,
December 9, 2001
John
the Baptist, a prophet: To Whom?
Sunday,
December 2, 2001
Some
Fall, I'd like the Sunday School to design Advent banners in the shape of large
antacid tablets - giant representations of rolls of tums, rolaids and bottles
of bromo seltzer, to hang along the aisles for the four weeks before Christmas.
It might help remind us that medicine for settling our stomach is related to our
disposition and appetite for Good News.
Sunday,
November 25, 2001
There
is an old rabbinical saying that goes, "If we use broken vessels, it is considered
an embarrassment. Yet God continually seeks out broken vessels to use, for God
is the healer of shattered hearts."
Sunday,
November 18, 2001
The
predictions of the Temple's destruction and its bitter aftermath stands out in
Mark and Matthew as well as Luke. Yet in the context of the larger Gospel story,
Jesus moves on to talk about redemption, not terror. Jesus offers us the possibility
of new relationships, not speculation or despair. The words of Jesus give us scant
justification for recrimination.