Category: Sermons

Sermon on our experience at the 2015 ELCA Youth Gathering in Detroit – Mark 16:1-8

“The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.” That’s the way the Gospel of Mark begins. He announces to us the Good News he’s about to tell us. Strange, then, that the Gospel ends on such a down note. For that’s what we read as our Gospel lesson today; the very end of the book. Jesus performs miracles and teaches great things, he is betrayed and crucified, and there’s an empty tomb, and— And they said nothing to anybody, because they were afraid.

What exactly is the message Mark wants us to hear from this? Where does this Good News of Jesus Christ take us? Off a cliff, it seems. They said nothing to anybody, because they were afraid.

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost (B) – John 6:56-69

I was a child during the age of television. For my brother and I, the TV was the primary form of entertainment we had growing up. Of course, our mother was careful to monitor our television-watching habits, and although I can’t ever recall feeling like any shows were particularly off-limits for us, Mom did tend to watch with us, so we could talk about anything that came up that wasn’t really age-appropriate, or she could gently change the channel if necessary. Of course, back then, we only had something like six channels, three of which were PBS affiliates, so there was only so much trouble we could get ourselves into on the screen. My mother insists that the short-lived “Electric Company” taught me how to read at a surprisingly early age. Naturally, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and Sesame Street were on every day in our household, watched faithfully by both my brother and I—and I would cite both as important factors in making me the loving, caring, wonderful person you all know me to be.

Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost (B) – John 6:51-58

On Friday night, I went for the first time in five years to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I don’t know how it took me so long to go do this; after all, you all know my interest in music, and at one point in my life, I had wanted to be an orchestra conductor when I grew up. It was a fun evening, if not exactly what I’d hoped it would be. I, of course, had cheap lawn tickets, and I found out why they were so inexpensive when it began to rain. And I mean rain. The water came down in sheets. Happily, they didn’t make us plebeians sit out in the weather; I got to stand under the dry roof of Ozawa hall, hoping my chair and blanket didn’t get too badly ruined.

Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, Lectionary 13(B) – Mark 5:21-43

We are not going to talk about racism today.

Early in this week, I received, along with all the other clergy members of the ELCA, a request from our Presiding Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, to make this Sunday a day of repentance and mourning after the tragic shooting of nine men and women at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston some ten days ago. You heard Dan read her statement on the events already. And though we appreciated the message and worship resources she sent, Dan and I decided together NOT to follow her request, mostly because it seemed like too little, too late. We talked and prayed about it last week, and the resources would have been welcome then. A friend of mine pointed out that it wouldn’t hurt us to talk about race two weeks in a row, and I tend to agree with him. But we don’t need repentance and mourning anymore. No amount of mourning will bring these nine people back. What we need now is action. We, a mostly white community of faith, have the obligation now of doing something to change the racism rampant in our world, so that the senseless death of God’s children due to hate can stop. Unfortunately, Dan and I haven’t figured out what kind of action we should take. And so, trusting in the Holy Spirit dwelling in all of us, I invite you to come to one of us and share your ideas, so we can hear what God is calling us to do together.

Third Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 6B) – Ezekiel 17:22-24, Mark 4:26-34

When the first European settlers came to New England, they found incredible diversity of creation here, plants and animals unlike any in the lands they’d left behind. One example: In the early days of America, over 200 different varieties of apples were identified and catalogued. Trees produced fruit that were large and small, in every shade and color, apples that were sweet, apples that were tart—even one that tasted like a banana! And that’s just one type of fruit. The creativity of God was on display everywhere, and the earliest inhabitants of our land, the native Americans or First Peoples, generally lived in a way that honored and protected that diversity.

Funeral for Maggie Burke – Revelation 21:1-7, Mark 10:13-16

Maggie was a wonderful teacher. I never really got to see her in action, though I do remember her passing through the hallway outside my office with toddlers in tow countless times. She always struck me as a sweet, loving, grandmotherly type, an image I know that she quite liked to have for herself. She was from an older generation than most of our teachers here, and while the majority of them are known to the children simply by their first name, she was always “Miss Maggie.” It gave her an elegance that she carried about her, even in the midst of one of her deep-seated coughing fits. And you could see deep down in her eyes and on the surface of her smile the great love she had for the children whom she taught. Maggie may not have lived to a ripe, old age, but God did teach us about His love in the last stages of life through Maggie.

Pentecost – Acts 2:1-21 – Confirmation Sunday

This is not a graduation sermon. I’ve said that before on Confirmation Sundays but it’s important to say it again. We may dress up our teenagers in red and white gowns with flowers and call them forward to receive—well, not a diploma, though they will receive certificates later on today. It may look a graduation, and it may feel like a graduation, but it isn’t a graduation.

Easter 7(B) – 1 John 5:[6-8,] 9-13

We’ve been reading through the letter of First John this Easter season, and it’s a hard text to read. The author of the letter doesn’t exactly work in linear fashion, arguing like Paul for a particular theological interpretation of the Christ event. Instead, he deals in images and circular reasoning, coming back to ideas he’s only touched on before, wandering off in confusing asides, and really making it quite difficult to understand what he’s talking about. We get some of the worst of it today: The beginning of our second reading today insists that Jesus came “not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.” It tells us that the “Spirit and the water and the blood” testify to Jesus as the Son of God, and they agree. And if you have no idea what all this means, well, you’re in good company.

This week began with the organization ISIS kidnapping and murdering twenty-one men from Sirte in Libya. The men’s crime was being Christian, members of the Coptic Orthodox church, native Egyptian believers in Christ. The news story saddens me. And it makes me wonder about a number of things. Would we have really noticed this story if it didn’t involve Christians—if those killed were Japanese businessmen, for example, or Mexican migrant workers? But more to the point, why does God allow this sort of thing to happen? ISIS is obviously an evil organization, so why does God let it exist? God is powerful enough to get rid of it. Why doesn’t God just fix things and take care of this problem?

22nd Sunday after Pentecost (A) – Amos 5:18-24

Well, God, normally I take my sermon time to talk to the people gathered here. But I think today instead I need to talk to you. Especially after reading today’s scripture passages. Saint Theresa of Avila once said that if this is the way you treat your friends, God, it’s no wonder you have so few of them. And to be honest, I feel like I understand pretty well what she is saying.