Category: Sermons

Baccalaureate Sermon, Wachusett Regional High School, 2011
Sermon on Matthew 5:13; John 14:20; Parable of the Salt Doll

Well, to begin:  Congratulations.  All of you–youth especially, but families too, and teachers and staff, have all worked very hard to get here together.

I thought I should reach into my own experience and share about achievement and success.  But looking back, well, while I graduated from college with a 4.0, my high school record shows that I was a mediocre student on the best days.  So then I thought I should talk about the joy of high school, the best years of your life.  But I was pretty unpopular as a teenager, even bullied now and then.  And I don’t think I’d honestly want to relive those years of my life again, not for a million dollars.

So what am I supposed to say that’s good?

Easter 4 (A) – 1 Peter 2:19-25.  “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  Other readings for the day included Psalm 23.

Singing:
I just want to be a sheep.  Baa-baa-baa-baa.
I just want to be a sheep.  Baa-baa-baa-baa.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
I just want to be a sheep.  Baa-baa-baa-baa.

Having sung all that, I have a confession to make.  I don’t want to be a sheep.

Baptism of our Lord (A) – Acts 10

I love having all the kids come up here for the children’s sermon.  It’s a sign of hope in an awfully messed up world.  What kind of a world are we raising our children in?  (Or, if you’re a younger worshiper today, what kind of a world are we growing up in?)

Yesterday morning, in Tucson, AZ, a United States Representative, a congresswoman, decided she wanted to get some feedback from her constituents.  So she set up some time for people to come and talk to her outside of a grocery store.  And a young man, college age, showed up with a gun and opened fire.  The congresswoman and twelve other people were injured, and six people were killed, including a good friend of hers who was a federal district court judge and a nine year-old girl who had just been elected as president of her elementary school student council, and wanted to learn a bit more from this congresswoman about the political process.  What kind of a world do we live in where this can happen?

Blue Christmas – Isaiah 35:1-10, Matthew 1:18-25

Homeless.  When the Babylonians swept through Jerusalem, destroying the city, carrying people off into exile, they must have felt homeless.  Sure, they had a roof over their heads in their new home of Babylon, but it wasn’t home.  They were in danger of losing their culture, their way of life–and even their God seemed to have left them.  Much of the Bible was written down during this time, as a safeguard against losing the history of Israel’s faith in this new place.  But we also get new things written at this time, too, like the beautiful poetry of Isaiah’s prophecy.  “A road will be made there,” it says, “and it will be called the holy way.  The righteous will travel on it, and not even a fool can get lost when following it.”  This was an incredible vision, of a road being carved out through the desert, straight from Babylon back to Jerusalem.  A vision of God leading the parade of Israelites, leading them back home.  This was God’s promise to them, a hope for the days to come.

Pentecost 24(C) – Malachi 4:1-2a, Luke 21:5-19

It must have been shocking when Jesus stood in the temple and announced that it would be coming down.  You need to understand that when we talk about the temple, we’re not talking about a building like this church.  Yes, its shape and purpose are the same, but a whole lot bigger.  Just this enormous structure that had room upon room upon room, a central little room where God dwelled among God’s people, were only the High Priest was allowed to go.  And a room beyond that where all of the priests would gather for worship, and a room beyond that where the men of the community would gather, and a room beyond that for the women of the community, and a room beyond that for foreigners and the sick.  Side rooms for banquets and dinners and special offerings, and chapels, and closets, and living quarters.  This was an enormous structure.  Not the sort of thing that people in the ancient world put together in a day or so.  The bricks can still be seen if you go to Jerusalem today, stones twenty feet wide.  For Jesus to say that not one stone will be left upon another is a great and terrifying prediction.  People must have been shocked at it.  And yet, in the year 70, when the Romans came into Jerusalem and laid waste to the city, and destroyed their temple, it must have been at least some comfort to Jesus’s followers that He said this would happen.  Jesus promised this, and His promises came true. 

Pentecost 22(C) – Luke 18:9-14

So, who would you rather be like–the pharisee or the tax collector?

When I was growing up, we would go to visit my family in the Detroit area, and my aunt and uncle would play this terrible game with me. My Uncle Bob would look at me and say, “Who do you love more? Me or your Aunt Gail?” And because I was at that age where kids like to repeat what grownups say, he’d get me to repeat after him: “Aunt Gail, Boo! Uncle Bob, Yay!” And of course, then we’d go over to my Aunt Gail’s house, and she’d do the exact same thing.

Pentecost 20(C) – 2 Kings 5:1-15, Luke 17:11-19

God did this. That much was clear. Some of the other details about the way he’d gotten to this point were a little more confusing. See, Naaman was the commander of the armies of the Kingdom of Aram, a great and powerful nation in the ancient middle east. Aram had swept its way across the middle east with its army and scooped up all of the little countries around it, including that little tiny place on the western seaboard called Israel. By that, they had shown that they were more powerful than Israel. That their king was better than Israel’s king. That their army was better than Israel’s army. That their god, they thought, was better than Israel’s God. And this great and powerful man, Naaman, this commander of armies, who had an illness, a white rash on his arm that wouldn’t go away, Naaman found a suggestion in the strangest of people: A little, tiny girl from Israel, a servant, said, “There’s a prophet in Israel who might be able to help you.” So the great and powerful Naaman went to his king, and took a letter, and said to the king of Israel, “Heal me.” And the king of Israel proved as unhelpful as anyone else. But there was a prophet in Israel, and so he went to Elisha. Who wouldn’t even come out of his tent when this great commander came to visit. I guess no one taught him good manners. And he said, “Go and wash in that river.” As if the water in Israel were better than all the other water in the world. But Naaman went, and did it anyway, on the advice of another servant, and– and he was made clean. And Naaman was right, there was nothing special about that water. God did this.