This Preaching Thing

(A sermon based on Luke 11:37-44 for Sunday, August 26, 2012) Trying to be a real Christian while living a real life in the real world is tricky business. I mean, just think of some of the tensions with which we live. For one thing, we know on the one hand that being Christian is not a matter of doing all the right things but we know on the other hand that we should and could do better at doing the right things. For another thing, we know that we are limited because we are human but we know on the other hand that we can be more than we can imagine because of the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives. For yet another thing, we know that our behavior is often of a higher quality than the state of our hearts but we know on the other hand that the state of our hearts is sometimes of a higher quality than the quality of our behavior. One of the challenges we confront is to face who we are in all our complicatedness, who we can by grace-infused effort become, and the g...

(A sermon based on Luke 9:18-27 for Sunday, August 19, 2012. Eighth in a series...) Gregg Allman’s disturbingly fascinating autobiography, which I recently finished reading, bears the unfortunate title My Cross to Bear . It is an unfortunate title because it uses that phrase in a way that is all too common but all too incorrect, namely, as a way to name the burdens that come upon us in the course of our living of life. In Gregg’s case, while some of the most difficult crises he faced were thrust upon him, namely, the murder of his father and the accidental death of his big brother Duane, most of his struggles were self-inflicted, such as the liver disease that resulted from his substance abuse. Still, whether we are at fault or not for our struggles, and as real and hard as the struggles of life are, such struggles are not our cross to bear. Our cross to bear is our following of Jesus in the kind of life that Jesus lived. It is a particularly Christian way of living that is ...

(A sermon based on Luke 6:1-11 for Sunday, August 12, 2012. Sixth in a series...) Our nation has in recent days been struck with two mass murders, one at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado and the other at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Both were senseless, heartless, cruel acts that can finally only be explained, if they can be explained at all, by the presence of great evil and deep sickness among us. It seems to be the case, based on what information we have, that the shooter in the Aurora murders was motivated by personal demons while the one in the Wisconsin attack, we might surmise based on his association with white supremacist groups, was motivated by racial and/or religious hatred. Each tragedy is as heart-breaking as the other and we pray for the communities, for the victims’ families, and for the injured in both cases and in both places. In the case of the Wisconsin shootings, the violence was carried out against a comm...

(A sermon based on Luke 5:15-16 for Sunday, August 5, 2012. Sixth in a series.) A few weeks ago the New York Times published an editorial by Tim Kreider entitled “The ‘Busy’ Trap.” He wrote, If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged...

(A sermon based on Luke 19:1-10 for Sunday, July 22, 2012) This saying has been going around on Facebook lately: “Some people are so poor all they have is money.” Zacchaeus was one of those people. He was one of those people who had everything and nothing, all at the same time. He had more money than anyone else in Jericho, he had more power than anyone else in town, and he had more enemies than anyone else in town. But he had no friends, no respect, no honor, and certainly no love. He likely had no hope that it was going to get any better for him. He had dug his hole and now it was just a matter of hanging around until he was completely covered up with dirt. Then along came Jesus. Evidently Jesus’ reputation had arrived in Jericho before Jesus did because a big crowd gathered to see him. Zacchaeus was among them. Look at him, jumping up and down trying to see over the crowd; look at the people, laughing at the little big man in town making a fool of himself. ...

(A Communion Meditation based on Luke 5:27-39 for Sunday, July 15, 2012. Fourth in a series...) Jesus called Levi the tax collector to follow him and Levi did. One of the first things that Levi did after he started following Jesus was to throw a big dinner party at his house for Jesus. That makes sense, because following Jesus is cause for celebration. Sure, following Jesus involves repentance which is a turning away from another way of living life and toward the way of living life in a free and full relationship with God, but that is no cause for mourning. It is reason for celebrating! Following Jesus is more about the life you are entering than it is about the one you are leaving; it is about the much that you are gaining rather than the little that you are losing! Levi’s guest list was made up of what Luke described as “a large crowd of tax collectors and others” and of what the religious folks described as “tax collectors and sinners.” Tax collectors are tax collector...

(A sermon based on Luke 11:1-13 for Sunday, July 8, 2012. Third in a series.) Richard Foster said, “Prayer catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life. Of all the Spiritual Disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father” ( Celebration of Discipline , p. 33). We see the truth of that statement when we look at the life of Jesus. Had we been among the people who followed Jesus during his sojourn on earth, we would have often seen him praying; we could also have assumed that, if he was not around, he was likely off somewhere by himself praying. Prayer, therefore, was central and essential to the life of Jesus. If we are his followers, then let’s make prayer central and essential to our life as well. Let’s make prayer central to our individual lives. Let’s make prayer central to the life of the church. And not the kind of prayer that is just a sharing of a list of the things we want or think we need. I’m...