Acts 2:1-21 On the day of Pentecost the small band of disciples were hunkered down in their upper room. They were all together in one place. In one room. Everybody in that room had – not long before – been a part of the crowds who were gathered in the streets below. Not very long ago they had been a part of that community, the people who made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Jewish festivals. That’s just what they had done, in fact, for the Passover festival. About seven weeks earlier. But a lot had changed since then. Now their community was much diminished. Now their community was comprised of a group small enough to fit into this upper room. And, sadly, the people in that room viewed many of those outside their room as enemies. It was kind of a low moment for the People of the Way. They […]
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Where Are You Looking?
Acts 1:6-14 Kim and I think our little dog Chuy is really sweet, but we know he’s not that smart. We don’t kid ourselves. He definitely has a certain amount of street smarts, because he’s been out on the streets a lot – a born wanderer. We’ve had to Chuy-proof our backyard fence to keep him from escaping. But in terms of intellectual capacity? Higher level cognitive function? We never had high expectations. Although at one point we thought maybe we had underestimated him. Our house in Ohio sat on a corner lot and Chuy would sit out in the backyard with us, watching the world pass by. When he saw somebody walking a dog coming up the sidewalk toward the house, he’d go bananas. He’d run as fast as his little legs would take him over to the side fence to give his greetings. Then, when the walkers would […]
Continue readingWe Are All Right Here
John 14:15-21 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” +++ The writer Louise Erdrich is […]
Continue readingIn Times of Trouble
John 14:1-14 We have known for some time, you and I, that hardship can bring deep meaning to our lives. This is not to say that we enjoy hardship – not by any means. But we realize that some good can come out of it. We like to recall our experience after 9/11, when so many Americans reconnected with their faith, and church sanctuaries were filled on Sunday mornings. In times of trouble we seek meaning. Yet, we should also remember, that resurgence in church attendance after 9/11 was actually very brief. It was a blip on the timeline. Nothing worth bragging about or celebrating, really. In fact, it showed us just how fickle our tastes are, how shallow our passions can be. Because not too long after 9/11 we were beginning to form a new passion. We fixed our attention on a clear enemy and went to war. Finding […]
Continue readingSomeone to Watch Over You
Acts 2:42-47 John 10:1-10 There wasn’t a lot of children’s programming on TV when I was young, but there were a few shows and we tended to love them indiscriminately. I mean, back in those days, anything that was made just for kids – that was special. But for a while when I was very small, the show I loved most was Romper Room. I planted myself on the floor in front of the TV every day to watch Miss Beverly and the lucky children who got to play with her in her TV classroom. I was so jealous of them. I adored Miss Beverly – she was pretty and kind. Her classroom was fun. I loved everything about Romper Room. But the moment Miss Beverly picked up her magic mirror at the end of the show was, without fail, a moment of preschool angst for me. Because here’s what […]
Continue readingThat Moment You Know
Luke 24:13-35 Something we often say to one another now is that every day feels the same. We forget what day it is, even what time it is, because we have abandoned our normal routines. It happens in my house, too – although I need to be extra careful to remember when Sunday comes around. Other than that, it’s easy to forget what day it is. Time is almost meaningless. So, maybe it won’t surprise anyone when I point out that, in the biblical texts for this Easter season, it has been the same day for three weeks. Really. From the perspective of our reading for today, it was only this morning that Mary found the tomb empty. And they still don’t really know what’s going on. Now, on that same day, we have two of these disciples – one named Cleopas and the other unnamed – who are walking […]
Continue readingThe Power of Forgiveness
Reading: John 20:19-31 If you have ever seen the film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” maybe you remember the baptism scene. A group of people all dressed in white, singing, as they slowly walk in single file into the river. One by one they get dunked in the water and come out cleansed, forgiven, renewed. Delmar, an escaped convict, gets swept up in the beauty of it and runs in to the water to get baptized too. He comes back to his two buddies all dripping wet, smiling, and says “Well that’s it, boys, I’ve been redeemed! The preacher’s done washed away all my sins and transgressions. Including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.” One of the others says, “Delmar, I thought you said you was innocent of those charges.” “Well, I was lying,” Delmar says, “and the preacher says that sin’s been washed away too. Neither God […]
Continue readingHeart to Heart Talks, Part 6: While Mary Stood Weeping
Today’s Easter Service video sermon John 20:1-18 Preachers often say that Easter is the hardest day to preach. Because what can you say about this story that hasn’t already been said a million times before? Well, let’s see if we can look at the story this morning with fresh eyes. Mary came to the tomb so early on Sunday morning it was still dark. But when she got near she could see that something was amiss. The stone that was covering the tomb had been moved aside. If it looked like anything, it looked like foul play. It looked like somebody had broken into the grave and taken the body away. Mary didn’t go any nearer to investigate. Mary was smart – not like some character in a scary movie who walks into the dark, empty house with the broken windows. Mary was smart; she turned and ran the other […]
Continue readingHeart to Heart Talks, Part 5: A Different Way
Matthew 21:1-11 On the day that Jesus and his followers came into Jerusalem, it was approaching the Passover celebration. This was and is a time of great celebration for the children of Israel. Most of the Jews didn’t live in Jerusalem – just like most Americans don’t live in New York – but they traveled there for the holiday. Jerusalem was the center of Jewish religious life. The temple made it so; it was the place to offer thanksgiving to God, the place to offer repentance, the place to receive forgiveness. But Jerusalem was more than that. It was not only a center of religious life, it was a center of political life and even financial life. It was like Washington DC and Manhattan rolled into one – the center of power in the region. It was the time of the Roman occupation; Rome placed its own chosen governor in […]
Continue readingHeart to Heart Talks, Part 4: Grieving Alone Together
John 11:1-45 When so many things seem to be happening so fast we begin to lose our ability to gauge the passage of time. Something that happened a week ago may as well have been two months ago, because it feels like forever ago. How long have we been “social distancing?” It feels like forever. At the seminary I attended, every student was required to participate in a cross-cultural trip. The destination varied from year to year but the length of the trip was always the same: three weeks. When we asked why three weeks, the answer was this. During the first couple of weeks it just feels like a vacation. You feel like a tourist abroad; you are a foreigner in a strange land, observing the natives in their habitat. But when you get into that third week, you begin to push past that barrier and something shifts. You […]
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