Sermon for Second Sunday of Christmas – John 1:1-18

Have you ever been afraid of the dark? When I was a kid, I was terrified of the dark. I grew up way out in the country, a few miles outside of a small town. There was little traffic on our road, and no street lights. The bedrooms were all down a long hallway, and when you’re a little kid, don’t all hallways feel like they go on for miles? And this was off another hallway to the kitchen and living room. So, even if all the lights were on in the living room, you couldn’t see it. This means that when my parents told me to go to bed, I had to make this horrible walk all the way to my room in the dark, past other dark bedrooms. It was terrifying to me, and it didn’t help that my parents weren’t very sympathetic. They were a pretty stoic couple. I used to make them so mad. They’d just say, “Knock it off! There’s nothing to be afraid of!” But it never convinced me. I couldn’t trust them, no matter what they said.

But here’s the funny thing. I was talking about this with my sister a few days ago, and she reminded me that we had a hallway light. I didn’t remember that at all. But it occurs to me that it wasn’t so much about the dark. What I was really afraid of, was being alone at the far end of the house by myself. Because who knows what could happen? Monsters. Bandits. My imagination ran wild. Folks can tell you there’s nothing to be afraid of. Maybe you can turn on a light. But sometimes these aren’t enough to make the fear go away. We still feel alone and vulnerable.

Sermon for Fourth Sunday of Advent – Luke 1:39-55

Gifts are complicated. Seriously. I don’t just mean folks that are hard to shop for. I mean, at Christmas we hear, “I didn’t know we were supposed to bring gifts.” Or, “oh you shouldn’t have.” Or, “if that’s another fruitcake so help me….” There are lots of obligations and expectations and rules around gifts. Interesting that we still call them gifts. Now, we like to talk about God’s free gifts, but seems like we do the same thing. What does God expect in return? Is it a blessing or a curse? Because sometimes God’s gifts feel like more of a chore than a gift, right? Like they cause more trouble than they’re worth. That’s the problem that Elizabeth and Mary wrestle with in our gospel reading today. What do you do when God’s gift doesn’t feel like a gift?

Sermon for Third Sunday of Advent – Luke 3:7-18

Have you ever heard the phrase, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”? Apparently John the Baptizer didn’t get that memo. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Not very uplifting, is it? Though, John’s a prophet. This is what prophets do. When things go to pot, God raises prophets to knock some sense into folks. But it also reminds me of one of my Old Testament professors who used to say, “You know, you might be a prophet…. or you might just be a jerk.” I mean, I’m pretty tightly-wound. I’m already good at beating myself up. I don’t need help. Maybe you know what that feels like?

But here’s the thing. Fire and brimstone works. Folks panic. They ask “what should we do?” But then he just gives this short to-do list. Share your extra coats and food. Stop extorting money from folks. All done. That’s weird! When everything’s in flames, isn’t that when you’re supposed to overhaul everything and make major life changes because you’re about to drive off a cliff? But he doesn’t tell them to quit being tax collectors and soldiers. He doesn’t tell them to put on sackcloth and ashes. He doesn’t ask for much. And you don’t have to be Christian to know this. Who doesn’t learn this in elementary school? Share your stuff. Don’t cheat. We don’t need a prophet to tell us this. Besides, this doesn’t scream repentance. It could just be a page out of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” So what’s really going on here?

Sermon for First Sunday of Advent – Luke 21:25-36

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. It’s the beginning of a new year for the church. So, it’s worth reminding ourselves what Advent means, because if you go by stores and radio stations and Black Friday and the Hallmark Channel, you’d think it was just a 4-week tailgater to get ready for Christmas. And this year’s really special, because the global supply chain is messed up. There are a lot of folks out there weeping and gnashing their teeth because some things are out of stock. Now, here’s what’s funny. That’s kind of what Advent is about. Not the capitalism part, but the anxiety. Advent is about the coming of the Lord, for desperate folks dying for a sign.

Our Gospels were written decades AFTER Jesus was crucified, risen, and ascended. That’s decades of tensions rising between Jews and Romans. Finally things explode. Roman armies attack. They build a wall around Jerusalem to starve the Jewish people to death. They go in and massacre folks. And they destroy the Temple. So, try to imagine the thunder of hoofbeats and armies. The sounds of people trying to flee for their lives. The flash of swords. The cries of pregnant and nursing mothers whose children will be no more. It’s savage and tragic.

This is when our gospel was written. To remember Jesus. To remember the stories and words that you’re dying to hear when your world was ending. This is why we hear Jesus talking about the end of the world. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Where was their help going to come from? From the Lord? Even now? It’s always the same story. They forget God. Their sins overwhelm them with death and destruction. They’re swept into exile. They repent in tears and ashes, and long for the Messiah. So our gospel remembers Jesus giving signs, by the sun, moon, and stars. By the distress of the nations and the roaring of the sea. The Messiah is coming. Not in prosperity, but in crisis, because God hears the cry of the afflicted. But this is a hard sign to hold, because it doesn’t look like promise. It looks like wrath.

How do our lives compare to that? For American Christians in 2021?

Sermon for Reign of Christ Sunday – John 18:28-37

Today we celebrate the Reign of Christ. Traditionally this is what we used to call “Christ the King Sunday”. A lot of churches still call it that. You can even find a lot of Christ the King Lutheran Churches out there. Why the name change? Well, there are some folks out there who are a little uncomfortable with “King Jesus”. It doesn’t bother me so much, but it does seem a little weird to picture Jesus sitting on some kind of throne barking orders. Because that’s what kings do. Now, I don’t know about you – I don’t think of Jesus in that way, but I do know some Christians who do. Folks with bumper stickers like this (“If Jesus has a gun, he’d still be alive today”)…… But here’s another thing. Have any of you ever lived under an actual king? So it’s worth going back to what Jesus has to say about what king means. Especially because it’s part of what got Jesus killed….

Sermon for 25th Sunday after Pentecost – Hebrews 10:11-25

Have you ever felt like you’re fighting a losing battle? Maybe you’ve heard of “The Great Resignation”? There’s an epidemic of folks who are quitting their jobs for a bunch of reasons, and a lot of companies who seem desperate to fill openings, but somehow things aren’t coming together. I’m not an economist, so I’m not qualified to speculate why, but I seem to know a lot of folks with strong opinions about what the problem is, and most of the time I hear them blame people for not wanting work. Somehow, I suspect the situation is way more complicated than this. But the other side of the story concerns folks like me who are still working. My company just had a bunch of really valuable folks leave, and that leaves it to me to pick up the slack. Customers don’t stop demanding new features, and bugs don’t magically stop happening, just because we don’t have enough folks for all the work. I love to cross off my to-do list as much as anyone, but after a while, I just feel like I’m fighting a losing battle. And it can be really demoralizing. So, do you keep fighting or do you give up? How do you decide?

Sermon for All Saints Sunday – John 11:32-44

I began with a conversation about procrastination, check out the recording to hear.

You know who else is a procrastinator? Jesus. Except when Jesus procrastinates, it raises a lot of questions.

So, Jesus is out by the River Jordan, and he gets an urgent message from his friends Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus are some of Jesus’ best friends. He loves them dearly. And this message should devastate him. “He whom you love is ill.” So you’d expect him to drop everything and go. That’s what we do for the people we love, right? But he doesn’t. Instead, he says something strange. “This illness doesn’t lead to death. It’s for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” What does he mean? Because we know Lazarus dies. What Jesus means is that he’s going to use Lazarus’ suffering as a way to reveal who he is. Because Jesus has a PR problem. Folks aren’t getting that he’s the Son of God. What better way to prove it than to raise someone from the dead? Now, that’s quite a demonstration! But there’s a big hitch. Someone’s got to be dead. This really should bother us a lot. The gospel even says – though he loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer. That doesn’t feel like love. Every shred of compassion in us should be screaming that this is NOT ok.

But he deliberately waits until Lazarus is good and dead. Then he goes to Mary and Martha. Martha hears he’s on the way, she runs to find him, and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know God will give you whatever you ask.” But she has no idea what Jesus has planned. What Martha’s saying is that Lazarus was the one who provided for us. He gave us a home and kept us fed. You let him die. You’re going to take care of us now, right? Because we know Martha. She’s practical. Back then, for a Jewish woman, marriage meant security. If you didn’t have a husband or family to take care of you, things were precarious. There’s a reason Torah talks so much about widows and orphans. Then Martha goes and tells Mary. Mary comes and says the same thing. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus sees her grieving and wailing. He sees their neighbors grieving and wailing. It’s too much. Jesus weeps. He’s greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. But you wonder if he’s just weeping for them, or because maybe he pushed the envelope too far this time?

Sermon for 21st Sunday after Pentecost – Mark 10:35-45

NOTE – Accidentally cut off the beginning of the gospel, so here you go:

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Christians are weird. We’re the only people I know who take a torture device and turn it into jewelry. But here’s what’s weirder. A friend of mine recently told me about wanting to get a guillotine necklace. I remember thinking “oh, that’s weird!” But I guess it’s not any weirder.

Though a crucifix is strange. The cross was utter brutality. I think we forget how gruesome it was. Not just the crucifying, but all the scourging and whipping done beforehand. Now, I don’t love talking about this, and I’m sure none of you want to picture it. But it’s odd how much Jesus talks about it, and how hard we try to sanitize it. So maybe we don’t really understand the cross.

Sermon for 21st Sunday after Pentecost – Mark 10:17-31

NOTE – This was a “conversational” sermon where I was trying to be more interactive….

Lately we’ve had a lot of controversial gospel readings. Last week it was divorce. The week before it was chopping off our hands or feet or plucking out our eye if it causes us to sin. Today we’ve got another one that makes folks nervous. Jesus says, “Sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you’ll have treasure in heaven.”

Does this sound like gospel? [DISCUSS]