Intersections

Have you ever met a polar bear? I don’t mean one of those giant furry things that you can see at the zoo in Columbus or other places. I mean - a person who willingly flings themselves into a body of water on the 1st day of January, regardless of the temperature? I have to admit, I’ve thought about doing it - to engage all my senses; momentarily feel a little more alive. Let’s be honest, frostbite doesn’t look good on anyone!   But when those crazies are in the water, what might they tell their onlookers? “Come on in, join me - the water’s fine!” Just because they’re freezing doesn’t mean they’re not having a good time. It’s all a matter of perspective. And maybe that’s how it looks on the outside to non-churchgoers. Ask someone to join you for church, and if you don’t know that person particularly well they may raise an eyebrow at you and wonder if they should call someone to take you home. It’s not the standard that it used to be - I’m gonna say something you might disagree with...

  Do you know what a paradox is? A paradox is defined as “a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.” Our faith as Christians is rife with paradoxes. Let me name a few: Christians conquer through surrender; we see the unseen; we lead by serving; and, we are strong when we are weak. Those are but a few. One preacher from another generation said “that without paradoxes there is no Christianity.” We wrestle today with another paradox—living today with an eye on the future. It’s particularly challenging for us to think about the future in light of Jesus’ own words to us in Matthew’s Gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, when he’s laying out the new ethic for the Kingdom of God, we hear him talk to his disciples about not storing up treasure on earth and about not worrying about food or clothing, and especially not worrying about tomorrow. His quote is “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomo...

  I was a little lost while I was writing this sermon this week... couldn't seem to put together the right words. Maybe that's why it seemed so easy to put off... out of sight, out of mind. Anyway - so here we are in the second week in our series of "Having Words with Jesus", taking difficult parables and maybe looking at them with fresh eyes to see how they can help us understand what Jesus is talking about. The second we have here in Luke 15 is actually a series of three parables, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. The lectionary breaks it up to put the last story at a different time in the rotation, and I suppose it deserves its own commentary. We are left with finding the lost.  It's interesting how Luke begins the chapter, pitting two groups kind of against each other. He starts with the tax collectors and sinners were gathering to hear Jesus speak. The pharisees and the other teachers of the law were somewhere close as well, but they are...

  This morning we are celebrating Trinity Sunday - that may not mean a whole lot to each of you, but it’s a celebration of the triune nature of God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the celebration of these three - in some pastors, there’s a desire to try to explain the relationship between these, and so this might be a really quick sermon or much more than anyone bargained for today. To help out - let’s take a twenty minute meditation as I have my children come in here with blown up photos of puppies and kittens.   Ok - they’re not coming. But this is one of the most difficult concepts in the whole Bible to try to explain. And any of my words will not do it any justice, even if I was an expert on the topic, but I am not. What do you think of when you think of wisdom? Your teeth? - all four of my wisdom teeth are out. Do you think of the term “collective wisdom” - wisdom seems to be more than just one individual thing, right? Like - let’s put our brains together...

  The last few weeks since Easter, we've been considering what it's like to be a witness to Jesus' resurrection, and what the early church did as written in the book of Acts. We are shifting away from the well-known stories of Peter and Paul to this lesser known story of Tabitha this morning. Now, this is kind of a strange story, and one that almost doesn't seem appropriate for Mother's Day. Even though there's a resurrection in our story today, there's no mention of Jesus. The witnesses were even sent out of the room, so what's he trying to pull... There's really no explanation for this other than Peter trying to toot his own horn.  But here's the spoiler - this story isn't about Peter. This story is about the impact that Tabitha has made on her community. She saw the others among her, especially the poor, the first says in the Living Bible translation. She was a seamstress and so she did what she could with what she had.  When she die...