Luke 4: 1-13 Do you remember the show, The Music Man? It’s about this man, Harold Hill, who travels from town to town in the early 1900’s convincing the townspeople that they need a local band. So he sells them musical instruments and uniforms. And he teaches them what he calls the “Think System.” You don’t need to bother with learning to read music, he tells them. You just think. Think! He has the people convinced that if they think it hard enough they will somehow acquire the skills of playing music. It didn’t work very well, though. Only their mothers and fathers could love hearing them play. And maybe that was enough. This show was written during the 1950’s, but it harkens back to a time in America when things like the think system were hugely popular. It went by a variety of names – mind-cure, positive thinking, self-help, […]
Continue readingCategory: Uncategorized
Strength for the Journey
Exodus 34:29-35 Luke 9:28-36 Kim and I have been watching a TV series recently on Netflix, and at the beginning of each episode a narrator tells us everything that has happened up until this point – very briefly, in about a minute. It feels weird. Because when you binge-watch shows on Netflix or Amazon or other streaming services, it feels unnecessary to have a voice telling you everything that happened on your TV screen five minutes ago. The way we read the scriptures in church, though, we could use some of those narrations. Someone to say, “Previously, in the Gospel of Luke…” so we know what happened eight days before. Because that is how this passage from Luke begins: Eight days after he said these things, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up to the mountain to pray. Well, what were those things he said eight days ago? We might decide […]
Continue readingGoing Deep
Isaiah 6:1-8 Luke5:1-11 Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a book called Learning to Walk in the Dark, which was our book of the month in January. So some of you have read it. We followed her explorations of the dark in all kinds of ways, including a simulation of blindness. In which she was encouraged to pay attention to what she was perceiving with all her other senses. And what she noticed was sight is a very shallow sense. When we rely on our other senses, we find that we need to slow down, pay attention more fully. Using our other senses allows us to go deeper in our experience and knowledge of things. When you touch, smell, listen, taste, you know something more deeply. Like it or not. In this gospel text, Jesus told Simon Peter to go out deep. He said, “Go out into the deep water and let […]
Continue readingLove in Action
1 Corinthians13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30 If you are like me, these words from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians make you feel warm and cozy and sweet; Valentine hearts and weddings and celebrations of love. But I don’t think either Paul or the Corinthians felt that way. Let me tell you a little bit about the Corinthians. Paul made his way to Corinth during his traveling evangelist years, by way of Athens, which was apparently the original ivory tower city. In Athens, Paul discovered how much the people there enjoyed an intellectual discussion of ideas. He offered them a very creative and compelling case for Christ, they sparred back and forth with him for a while. And at the end of the day, they said, “Good argument, Paul. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Maybe we’ll come back and do it again tomorrow.” An outcome that might very well have left Paul feeling a […]
Continue readingSeasons of Grief and Joy
Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10 Luke 4:14-21 When we first went into COVID quarantine, back in March of 2020 we thought it would be for a couple of weeks. That was only the beginning of our COVID delusions. The season of Lent passed. Then Easter passed. I remember telling people we were going to come back by Pentecost with a blow-out celebration, for the sake of all the things we had missed. We would wave palm branches, set out Easter lilies, and have red balloons to represent the flames of Pentecost. We would hug each other and sing all the hymns we had missed, with gusto. But then Pentecost came and went…and we were still waiting. A whole year passed before we came back together in the sanctuary for worship. And it wasn’t the massive, multipurpose celebration I had envisioned. We were few in number. We were carefully spaced. We were masked and […]
Continue readingWhen the Hour Arrives
John 2:1-11 When Kim turned 50 years old, I threw him a surprise birthday party. I invited all our friends and family; it was a great celebration. And we ran out of beer. I didn’t panic, though. Because in Pennsylvania you just call up your local beer distributor and they will deliver a case right to your door. So I did. And my brother-in-law happened to answer the door when it arrived, and he paid for it. Which was a nice bonus. So everything turned out well. I know how important these things are. I learned at my mother’s side that the very worst thing that can happen to a host is to run out of something a guest might want. It is the stuff nightmares are made of. Still, I know that there are plenty worse things that can happen in life. Running out of your beverage of choice? […]
Continue readingWhere Everybody Knows Your Name
Isaiah 43:1-7 Luke 3:15-17,21-22 There is a pretty good chance you know the origin of the sermon title: “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.” It’s the theme song from the old TV show Cheers. Set in a Boston bar called Cheers. There was a crew of regulars who appeared in every episode. One of them, Norm Peterson, would always walk through the door and be greeted with a chorus saying, “Norm!” Then Norm would go sit down on his regular seat at the end of the bar. The place where everybody knows his name. It’s great to have a place like that. On some level, we all long for a place where everybody knows our name. Someplace where you feel comfortable, where you have friends. It might be a coffee shop, a bar, a barbershop, the YMCA. It is a place where […]
Continue readingForgetting
Philippians 3:12-13 Graham Greene was a great English novelist, and among the many wonderful books he wrote was a slim volume called Monsignor Quixote. It’s about a priest who is traveling with a companion, someone with whom he does not always agree. They have very different beliefs and somewhat different values and a lot of “discussion” about these differences. One morning, after a night of heated disagreement, his companion comes to the priest to apologize about last night. Father Quixote says he has no idea what he is concerned about, for he hasn’t any recollection of whatever they discussed the night before. “I am trained to forget what I am told,” he says. Even when it’s not in the confessional? “It’s much easier for a priest to treat everything as a confession. I make a habit of never repeating anything to anyone – even to myself, if possible.” Most people, including […]
Continue readingHome – Part 2
Luke 2:41-52 I have some clear memories of losing a child in the mall or the grocery store or the park – you name it. I don’t really think I am especially careless. It’s the children. Unless you tie them on a string or lock them in a room with you, it’s really hard to keep track of children. Because children are careless. Young children are careless about wandering off because they don’t yet understand the consequences – that they may not find their way back. They don’t understand the possibility of being separated from the ones who care for them. Children are so careless about getting themselves lost. My sister Katie was especially careless, always wandering after anything that caught her eye. My mother once lost Katie in the mall and frantically ran around looking for her. Eventually she found her way to a department store security office. My […]
Continue readingHome – Part 1
John 1:1-14 If you go into a busy, crowded place this time of the year, you are likely to hear one word buzzing through the air: home. People asking each other, “Are you going home for Christmas?” “Will you be home for the holidays?” “Are your kids all coming home?” Home. Home. Home. The word seems to be everywhere. Everyone talking about home. Every year at this time, we think about home, we want to be home. We associate home with Christmas. Yet, in a time when our ability to travel anywhere is severely hindered by a pandemic, going home is hard. In a time when gathering with others is subject, always, to our best understanding of a changing situation, changing rules, tests and vaccinations; when our efforts to gather together and be home are fraught with anxiety on top of all the usual emotions; we ask ourselves what does […]
Continue reading
