March 2024 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Palm Sunday – Sit Up

John 12: 12-16 It was the time of the Passover Festival. As always, the Passover would bring great crowds of Jews into Jerusalem. This was a major event in the life of Israel. The Passover is the annual remembrance of how God freed the people of Israel from their centuries of enslavement in Egypt. The story of how God used Moses to lead the people out of bondage and into the land of promise. The directions God gave to Moses, if you recall, were surprisingly straightforward, and bold. To stand before the Pharaoh and say to him simply, “Let my people go.” Certainly no one thought that Pharaoh would just say, Okay. And he didn’t. So there was a series of plagues sent to afflict Egypt, to encourage them to let the Israelites go. The plague of turning the river to blood, the frogs, gnats, pestilence, boils, hail and fire, […]

Lent 5: Lift Up

John 12: 20-33 During my second year of seminary, I went on a cross-cultural trip with my class. This was something my seminary required of all students in the Master of Divinity program. Three weeks in another country, time spent immersed in the culture, learning about the Christian faith from a very different perspective. The destination varied from year to year. In my year, it was Cuba. This was in a time when internet and cell phone service were not universally available, so I was completely separated from Kim and our four children for three weeks. When we finally returned home, Kim and our two little boys met me at the airport. I can remember clearly how I felt. Elated, grateful, tears of joy. A classmate told me later, “The look on your face when you saw your family? That’s the way I think we will all look when we […]

Lent 4: Light Up

John 3:14-21 In the 1970s there was a man named Rollen Stewart who started attending sports events and doing big gimmicky things to get in front of the camera. He said later he didn’t care at all about sports, but it was a way of getting a lot of attention, which he did care about. Then he became a “born-again” Christian and his purpose changed. Now he wanted to draw attention to the gospel. So he started carrying in sheets or banners with “John 3:16” printed on them in big bold print. A lot of people didn’t have any idea what that referred to, but it sparked their curiosity. It became a thing. And John 3:16, which Martin Luther, centuries ago, called the gospel in miniature, came to stand in for the whole of it. For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone […]

Lent 3: Raise Up

John 2: 13-22 When I was a campus minister, one year I had a couple of students who were planning to walk in the local Crop Walk. They had their registration forms, but they didn’t have any donations. Maybe they didn’t really know how to get them. Their pastor, however, was a seasoned veteran of asking people for money, so I put these young women in my car and I hustled them over to a church I knew well. It was after the worship service ended. We crashed their fellowship hour, and I challenge the good people of this church to lend a helping hand by opening their checkbooks. I knew they would respond. I took advantage of these Christian people and their sense of responsibility. Was it for a good cause? Of course. But did that make it right? I leave that to you. I was not the only […]

Lent 2: Take Up

Mark 8:31-38 You don’t usually want to lead with the bad news. When you’re reporting to your boss or a client about the big project you’re working on. When you’re giving a patient their test results. When you call your aunt, the one who assumes the worst every time the phone rings; who says “Hello. What’s wrong?” In general, I think it’s best to start with the good news. But not always. In the church we have a tendency to lead with the bad news most of the time, don’t we? You barely get settled in your seats on a Sunday morning and we say, “Let’s confess our sins.” It’s like we want to make sure you’re not too happy. When you think about it, it’s a wonder anyone sticks around. It’s amazing that people come back for more. Especially in the season of Lent, when we like to give […]

Lent 1: Come Up

Mark 1:9-15 A question that sometimes comes up when we consider Jesus’ baptism is “why.” Why did he get baptized; God’s own son, fully human and fully divine, without sin. Why? Whenever we baptize a person in the church, we always ask one question: Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world? This is the first question that must be answered by anyone presenting themselves or a child for baptism. This is the first affirmation we make in the church. We stand at the church door, so to speak, and we renounce the ways of sin and the power of evil before we step over the threshold. From this point on, we are saying, this is who we are. We are the ones who renounce the power of evil in the world. It’s quite possible you […]

Ash Wednesday – Store Up

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 The poet, Mary Oliver, wrote a poem called “The Summer Day.” It begins with a question: who made the world? Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? Big questions for a lazy summer day, I would think, but then it becomes apparent that she is no longer thinking grand thoughts, head in the clouds, because she is distracted by this grasshopper in her hand. Whatever she was thinking about before, she is now completely and utterly engrossed in this singular grasshopper. the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down – who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she […]

Letters of Love, Part 4: Glimpses of Glory

Psalm 50 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Have you ever looked at one of those optical illusions where, when you first look at it you see one thing and maybe someone else sees a different thing? And then if you keep looking at it, you will probably eventually see that other thing too? But sometimes you don’t. People are saying to you, “Look, don’t you see it?” and you try all kinds of tricks with your eyes – you squint, you look at it sideways, you try the soft-focus – but you still cannot see the image other people see. You just don’t have a clue. It is somehow, in the words of the Apostle, veiled to you. In 2nd Corinthians we can see the contours of a relationship between the Apostle Paul and the church in Corinth. And if it seems a bit muddy to the reader, that is partially because […]

Letters of Love, Part 3: How to Build Up Love

Psalm 62:5-12 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 In 1864 as the Civil War was coming to an end, Jourdan Anderson and his wife Amanda, fled from the Tennessee plantation where they had been enslaved all their lives. They moved to Ohio. Jourdan found work, and their family grew and flourished. A year later, their old master, Patrick Henry Anderson, wrote Jourdan a letter asking him to consider coming back to work for him. Jourdan could have ignored the letter. He could have sent a caustic and profane reply, but he didn’t. He sent a wonderful reply to the old master. Sir, I got your letter and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdan, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have […]

Letters of Love, Part 2: Leaving the World Behind

Psalm 62:5-12 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 One day in 1780 the sky over New England turned dark at 9:00 in the morning. All of nature was disoriented and terrified. The people said, “This is the day of judgment!” It lasted until midnight, when the stars began to appear in the sky. The strange occurrence is thought to have been caused by a combination of smoke from forest fires and a heavy fog. But at the time, there was great concern, even after the darkness lifted, as people became obsessed with the idea of a pending apocalypse. There was a sect of Christians in the area that benefitted from this – the Shakers. They took advantage of this end-times anxiety and went on an evangelistic tour of New England, preaching their beliefs and practices. The Shakers believed in preparing themselves for the end by giving up their worldly goods and practicing celibacy. […]