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Coming Home to You, Part 6: Choose Love

Mark 12:28-34 When I was a child I went to sleepover parties with my friends. The goal of sleepovers was to stay up all night, and the best way of doing that was to play at scaring ourselves silly. We played with a Ouija board and convinced ourselves that some spirit was moving the piece around the board, and we screamed. We played some kind of levitation game where one girl would lie on the floor and the others would kneel around her and place two fingers underneath the girl’s body. The girl would start to rise from the ground and we screamed. We played a game we called Mary Worth, where we had to look at ourselves in the mirror in a dark room, and repeat, I believe in Mary Worth, until the face of Mary Worth would appear in the mirror. No one had any idea who Mary Worth […]

Coming Home to You, Part 3: All In

Mark10:17-31 One of the favorite films in our family is The Princess Bride. We can watch it together over and over and always enjoy. It’s a story about a princess who has been kidnapped by some bad guys who hope to set off a war in the kingdom. Either that or it’s a story about true love. Or else it’s a story about a grandfather reading a fairy tale to his grandson. Whatever it is, it’s funny and sweet. The character Vizzini, a Sicilian mastermind criminal played by the actor Wallace Shawn, has kidnapped the princess Buttercup. Inigo Montoya, a Spanish swordsman and Fezzik, a giant, assist him in his criminal endeavors. They are all being pursued by a mysterious man in black. Vizzini tries to outwit the man in black, but every time they look back they discover he is still on their trail and gaining on them. Each […]

Coming Home to You, Part 2: Measuring Value

Mark 10:13-16 Patience is a virtue, without doubt. But in these verses, we have the evidence that even Jesus could lose his patience. As I have said before, we sometimes forget that he was fully human. And humans sometimes run out of patience. The evidence here is in the word indignant. Jesus was indignant. He’s in the middle of teaching, and he looks over to his leadership team and sees them standing in front of the little children blocking their way to the Lord. They seem to think they are the bouncers at the door of Jesus’ club. And he’s like, What part of “whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me” did you not understand? What part of “if you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and […]

Coming Home to You, Part 1: Who We Are

James 3:13-4:3,7-8 Mark 9:30-37 In all the preparations for returning to our sanctuary for worship, I have had St. Augustine of Hippo on my mind. I’ll tell you why. Augustine was born in 354 in a Roman province that is now part of Algeria, in Africa. Important for us to know: Augustine was an African. His mother, Monica, was a Christian. Augustine was raised as a Christian, but like a lot of kids, he didn’t seem to be terribly serious about it. He was a smart, and probably cocky, little guy. He ran around with a rowdy bunch and got into plenty of trouble. In his teens, he became enthralled with philosophy and embraced a religion called Manicheism, which was very popular at the time. Just about killed his mom, but she never gave up on him. He was willful and wayward and at 17 began a relationship with a young […]

Do You Know Jesus?

Mark 8:27-38 Do you know what Jesus looks like? Would you recognize him if you saw him pushing a cart at the Food Lion or walking down Division Street? Do you know Jesus? I think I would recognize him – you know, from the pictures. If he hasn’t changed his hair, that is, his beautiful long wavy hair. And if he still wears those long flowing robes, definitely I would recognize him. If he hasn’t changed his style too much, I would know him. But even if he has I would know his blue eyes, his beautiful smooth skin. You all have seen the pictures, too, right? You know. Our Jesus is beautiful. The Warner Sallman painting, The Head of Christ, is the one. When Americans imagine the face of Jesus we are most likely to envision this face. A serene looking man gazing off into the distance, serious but not stern. More than 500 million copies of this painting have been sold […]

God’s Preferences

Mark 7:24-37 When our kids were little, Kim used to say to them, “Oh, you’re my favorite 8-year-old boy!” or “You’re my favorite 13-year-old daughter.” It would always surprise them, but then they would laugh. He wanted each one to know that they were his favorites. Each one of them. Kids spend a fair amount of time thinking about favorites. It’s a big word in a child’s vocabulary: favorite ice cream, favorite color, favorite animal, and so on. And they think, too, about whether their parents have a favorite child. In fact, even when we grow up, we still might think about who was our parents’ favorite child. Whether or not parents have a favorite among their children, or grandchildren, almost all parents do favor their own children over others. To us that seems not only normal but quite appropriate. We might judge harshly any parent who does not seem […]

Come Away

Song of Solomon 2:8-13 James1:17-27 I read a wonderful little story this past week, about something that has happened in the past and might possibly still be happening today. The story goes that when a Navy man served on board a submarine, his wife, if he had a wife, was permitted to send him messages – but only short messages. They were limited to eight words. That’s pretty short. And they were censored, if needed. You can just forget about privacy. But the Navy wives had a secret: The Song of Solomon. They would send messages like SOS 1:2, which counted as only one word. The husband knew that this meant Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 2, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine!” These wives were sending coded messages and some of them were pretty steamy. So, that’s one […]

The Hard Stuff

John 6:56-69 We Presbyterians like to think of ourselves as intellectual Christians. We place a high value on our doctrine, often making reference to what Calvin had to say about this or that. We insist that our pastors be well-educated because we enjoy a good challenging sermon. In fact, the common criticism that you hear of Presbyterians is that we love the Lord our God with our whole mind – and we stop there. Never mind the heart, soul, and body. Hence our nickname, the “frozen chosen.” And perhaps because of the way we embrace the intellectual things, we often find ourselves in an uncomfortable position with the scriptures. For instance, what in the world do we do with these words Jesus said in this chapter of John? Would you like my honest opinion? At the risk of offending you, I will say I think we sometimes are a little […]

QUEST, Part 4: RETURNING HOME

Psalm 36:5-9 John 15:1-17 I have heard that if you want to really get the feel of a place you need to stay there at least three weeks. One or two weeks feels like a vacation away from your real life, but sometime during that third week your perspective shifts. You begin to feel like a resident, a local. When I was in college I spent a month in Oxford, England and that happened to me. I came home from that month away and looked at everything with new vision. I became a tourist in my hometown. An obnoxious tourist, actually. I was critical of everything, I rolled my eyes at the naivete of my loved ones. I was 19 and insufferable. I have grown up since then, but still, when I return home from a journey there is always a sense of seeing things differently. I spent three weeks […]

QUEST, Part 3: REFLECTION

Isaiah 65:17-25 Revelations 21: 22-26 I often hear people complain about the Old Testament. They say that it is full of nothing but violence and ugliness. I just want to point out this beautiful passage from Isaiah is part of the Old Testament. People, including me, also say that the book of Revelation is chock full of awful stuff. But then you have this exquisite passage from chapter 21. It is true, in the Old Testament and in Revelation, and perhaps even in the gospels, we wade through a lot of hard stuff, awful stuff – and then we get to this place of breathtaking beauty. Kind of like life, at times. There is a lot of awful and painful stuff in the world, stuff that is hard to look at. Yet, if we remain present, we may get to hope. These two passages we read today are preceded by […]

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