Luke 12:32-40 Last week I told you a story about a family that was so caught up in the consumer culture that it just about destroyed them – until, mercifully, they realized they could intentionally back away from it. Disentangle themselves from the consumer treadmill. And one of the first things they did was to sell or give away some of their possessions. In last week’s gospel reading, Jesus told his listeners, “Your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” And sometimes we need to get out from under the mountain of our possessions to begin to know that. He told them a parable about a man who was living his life, trying to take care of his stuff, and then out of the blue was told he was a fool for doing that. That his time was up. “Your life is being demanded of you this […]
Continue readingAuthor: Maggie Gillespie
The Good Life
Luke 12:13-21 Let me tell you a story. It’s a familiar story. Maybe you know it. A man and a woman fall in love. They realize they want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. They begin to talk about a possible future together and what that could look like. So the man begins to make a plan. Searching on Google, he finds “7 Tips for Planning the Perfect Proposal,” and he’s off. He enlists her best friend as his co-conspirator and he scouts out the perfect location to pop the question. He hires a professional photographer who will lurk just out of sight and be ready to capture the big moment. Everything will be shared on their social media accounts – Facebook, Instagram – with tons of “likes” and “Congratulations!” Once they are engaged, the couple begins planning their wedding. They know that the planning phase […]
Continue readingWhat Is Needed
Luke 10:38-42 I served a church that had a board of deacons made up entirely of women. And so the first year I worked with the nominating committee I strongly encouraged them to consider some men who might be called to serve as a deacon. Not too long after that I got a visit to my office from Doreen, the moderator of the Deacons. She was in a fit. She said, “I heard you all nominated Ty for deacon. Just tell me: what am I supposed to do with him? He can’t bake!” I tried to argue that there was really much more to the ministry of the deacons than baking cookies, but Doreen was still doubtful. “Well, besides,” I said, “How do you know he can’t bake?” I had no idea at all if Ty could bake a batch of cookies, but mostly I wanted to get beyond the […]
Continue readingA Plumb Line
Amos7:1-17 Luke 10:25-37 Kim told me recently that I am about due for a lighthearted sermon. I told him I would certainly keep that in mind. Honestly, I would like nothing more than to make you smile and even laugh. Even though the world keeps lobbing grenades at us. There is a film I love called Four Weddings and a Funeral. It is a comedy that follows a group of friends as they attend weddings together. Hilarious things happen – disastrous best man speech, lost wedding rings, a very nervous and stuttering priest, and so on. Then at one of the weddings they attend, someone dies, which is not funny at all. The funeral follows, a very tender scene. Then the comedy resumes, but now they are all, somehow, changed. Life does that to a person. We wear the hardships in our bodies. All of us do. You don’t […]
Continue readingOverwhelmed
Luke 10:1-11,16-20 It was about 25 years ago and I was working as a Director of Christian Education in a Presbyterian congregation. I was in my late thirties. And I was in conversation with another member, Marilyn, who was interested in teaching an adult class in the church. She had never taught in the church before. She was a clinical psychologist. She had been a member of the church for years, although not much involved. But now she was interested in becoming more involved and teaching seemed like a good avenue to her. Her reason, she told me, was that she was getting older – in her seventies, I think. And, she said, the closer she came to the end of life, the more interested she became in matters of faith. I don’t know offhand what the average age is in our congregation, or any congregation for that matter. But […]
Continue readingThose Who Pick Up the Mantle
2 Kings 2:1-2,6-14 Last week we were with Elijah on Mount Horeb listening to the Lord in the silence…when Elijah came to know that he was not actually alone as he had thought. There were thousands more doing the same work he was doing. He heard from the Lord that he should find a man called Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel-mehola, and anoint him prophet. Elisha would be the one to take Elijah’s place. So Elijah went off in search of Elisha. He found him out plowing a field. Elijah walked by the other man and threw his mantle over him. Elisha stepped away from the plow and followed him. And from that point on they were a pair – teacher and disciple. Until the day when Elijah’s time was up. It seems they both knew it. In fact, it seems like everyone knew; the company of prophets […]
Continue readingThe One Who Fills Us
1 Kings19:1-15a If you only knew this particular episode in the prophet’s life, then you would imagine Elijah must have had a pretty lousy run to get so far down in the dumps. But it is really just the opposite. Before this chapter, Elijah had just come off the greatest success imaginable. It’s one of the highlights of the Old Testament, in fact. Israel has been in a drought for three years. King Ahab would, of course, love to see the drought end because it’s eating away at his approval ratings. But Ahab has another problem too, which involves his wife – Queen Jezebel. She is not an Israelite. When she married Ahab and came to Israel she brought her gods with her – the Baals, as they are called. Baal is not a proper name, but a title, like lord. The Baals are idols of other cultures, and we know from the scriptures that the people of Israel were prone to dabbling in Baal worship. […]
Continue readingBlessed Trinity
Romans 5:1-5 John 16:12-15 Today is Trinity Sunday, which is a thing that is hard to get excited about, I have to admit. It just feels very abstract. The doctrine of the trinity is hard. In fact, the first thing you need to say about it is that it is not a thing we can really comprehend, so we shouldn’t even try. But we do try. We are continually making all kinds of creative analogies in order to make sense of it. The Trinity is like water, we say, which can take three forms: ice, liquid, and steam. Or the Trinity is like a man, who can be at the same time father, son, and uncle. St. Patrick said the Trinity is like a shamrock, one object with three distinct leaves. And none of these analogies work. Because there is nothing that is like the Trinity. But we continue to try. […]
Continue readingSpirit Breath
Acts 2:1-21 Breath is the most natural thing in the world, until it’s not. It’s almost entirely automatic, and that’s a good thing. If we had to think about it our lives would be in peril every time we dropped off to sleep, or our minds wandered even a little bit. We take breathing for granted most of the time, but then there are moments when we realize how amazing it is. When a newborn child takes his first breath, there is a cheer of relief and delight in the room. In the same way, those who sit watch at a deathbed let out a sigh of prayer when the dying person has breathed her last. Breath separates life from death. So many more of us became acutely aware of this during these past couple of years of COVID-19. Many more people experienced what it is like to not be […]
Continue readingSacrifices
Amos 5:16-24 John 17:20-26 In ancient Israel the center of religion was the temple in Jerusalem. Before that it was the tabernacle that they constructed during their time in the wilderness. There was, for hundreds of years, a single place the people went to worship the Lord. And the central act of religion was sacrifice. Not prayer, not reading from scripture or singing hymns, but sacrifice. The book of Leviticus provides in detail all the written laws about how and why to make sacrifices to God. They were called offerings, and there were several kinds. There was a guilt offering, a sin offering, an offering of well-being, a thank offering. The offering might be the grain from your fields, but more often an animal was required – a bull, a sheep, a goat. And if you could not afford one of these larger animals, you could bring two turtle doves. […]
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