Sermons

9 December 2012

Second Sunday of Advent

When I was a sophomore in high school I had a chance to visit my oldest brother at Yale University. My brother had always excelled in school. He won admission to Harvard and Yale and later became a Rhodes Scholar. He was and still is a wonderful pianist. He practiced every day from the time my grandfather bought him a piano for his fifth birthday until he went off to college. He was a perfectionist and worked hard at everything that was intellectually challenging. Socially he was awkward, but he compensated for it by being an academic star. This was who he was, in our family and outside of it. I, on the other hand, performed on the low side of average in those early high school years. I found school oppressive and didn’t study much. I was certainly not motivated to try very hard. I never thought of myself as stupid, but I wasn’t gifted either. I hung out with the so-called jocks because I wanted social acceptance, even though I didn’t make a very convincing jock. This was who I was, in my family, and outside of it, too.

2 December 2012

First Sunday of Advent

Advent is a strange season.  On the one hand we are supposed to be waiting for something important and new to happen.  On the other hand we are heading toward Christmas, perhaps the most shopworn celebration of the Christian year.  

A standard theme for Advent preaching is “Rescue Christmas from Commercialism.”  I’m going to preach that sermon now.  “Don’t give in to commercialism.  Don’t give into nostalgia.  Christmas isn’t an excuse to give toys to children.”  Okay, that is over with.

Another standard theme for Advent is that the birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy in Hebrew Scripture.  In today’s lectionary reading “Jeremiah twas foretold it…”  

25 November 2012

Reign of Christ Sunday

When I learned that the liturgical theme this season was “Faith in a Dark Time,” I picked Psalm 93 from the alternative readings in the lectionary.  It’s a Psalm that pits the power of God against the primeval waters.  Given the past few months, we don’t have to try very hard to understand the sea here is a force of chaos and relentless destruction.  But the psalmist assures us that even as the waves thunder down on us, God is the mightier: “the world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.”

 Twenty-fourth Sunday After Pentecost Several times each year, Seekers Church takes time out from its regular preaching schedule for a service of chant, prayer and reflection modeled on the worship of the Taizé Community in France. This Sunday was one such time. Repeating the chants together until they die away into the silence provides rest for our world-weary spirits as well as an opportunity for individual reflection on our faith journeys. As we joined in spirit with the monks at Taizé, we were nourished by their faithfulness as well as by their music.

4 November 2012

 Twenty-third Sunday After Pentecost

 Gospel Reading:  John 11:32-44 … (Jesus) cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out! The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

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 This week, we celebrate All Saints’ Day, which falls on November 1, and All Souls’ Day, which falls on November 2.  The Feast of All Saints can be traced back to Pope Gregory III (circa 741), who dedicated an oratory in St. Peter’s for the relics of saints and martyrs.  The Feast of All Souls developed during the Medieval period in connection with the dogmatic invention of purgatory. It was celebrated primarily in homes by lighting candles and leaving food for troubled souls or ancestral spirits who were, according to Catholic doctrine, awaiting entry into heaven.