Ye Olde Reverend

Robert Frost wrote this poem:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

A…

Ever been arrested, stopped in your tracks? Placed in the hole?

Twenty-nine times, advocate of non-violent change, preacher and civil rights leader, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested, once for going 30 miles per hour in a 25-mph zone.

After a 1963 arrest in Birmingham, AL, for breaking a court order banning non-violent protest, King is in a small jail cell, crafting a letter…

Some 30ish days ago, in the children’s Disco Nativity, we sang of kings who catch wind of Jesus, who come bearing gifts, giving themselves away as gifts, too. Now, 30 days from Ash Wednesday, we hear of Nathanael who catches wind of Jesus and says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

The kings come as gift. Nathanael comes as expectation. The kings see One worthy of gift. Nathanael sees One…

“Yes. Yes, to it all! Yes! Yes! Yes!” John 1: 6-8, 19-28.

“Yes”—Sunday Advent 1B tells of endings.

“Yes”—Sunday Advent 2B has wilderness prepare us for the story of One who is more Powerful, losing our self-story amongst wilderness brambles.

Sunday Advent 3B shows our challenge to entering the story of “the One more powerful,” is our rabid hunger to say, “Yes,” to defining God, people and circumstances, as “either this or that.”

Narrow “either-or…

Duke graduate, Enuma Okoro, says, “Openness to God demands our growing acceptance that we cannot create blueprints for our own lives.”

Blueprints shape our self-story; a story we mistake as eternal, one to which we cling for security and meaning, one we craft to suit us. As 1st century Jewish identity was grounded in the Temple, often, our identity story is grounded in “us.”

Sunday Advent 1 tells…

take up your adventing story of darkened sun, lightless moon, of falling stars, of heavenly powers shaken, and watch in stillness, wait in quiet.

Jesus says, “in those days…sun will be darkened, moon will not give light, and stars fall from heaven, and heavenly powers shake.”

Those who know a cancer diagnosis, a foreclosure notice, a car repossession, those who’ve heard a doctor’s words, “I’m sorry, your mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter, baby has died,” already know life “in those days;” already know too well those adventing…

Matthew 25:14-30

A chapter before, the disciples ask, “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus answers with stories; one of a wedding with bridesmaids who’d invested in oil reserves, and bridesmaids who did not, now one of servants entrusted to invest in God’s kingdom. Before, five uninvested bridesmaids got left in the dark, now someone else gets bounced. Is this…

A Reformation Thought—nothing more.

So here we are on All Hallow’s Eve, and here I am in my home office, preparing to polish a first draft funeral sermon. It’s slow going this morning, not due to the cold, which I adore. But it’s slow going because I am distracted for I’m pondering still the point of Reformation Day.

I guess I am over in the camp of Stanley Hauerwas, at least in the camp where Hauerwas was when he spoke the…

Great stuff from Pr. Dave Wagner. Brilliant, loving, pastor.

  Source: Time

Jesus says, “You cannot serve both God and Money,” and says, “ where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The past five Sunday sermons were about stewardship, covering five truths for living into Reformation. We call these truths the five “solas,” five non-negotiables, that proclaim the Gospel Truth.

Stewardship is about stewarding what God entrusts to us, our time, talents, and treasures, to ensure that we effectively steward the biggest treasure entrusted to us by God, a story, the Gospel Truth.

Fi…

Feast of St. Luke. Christ, not people! Luke 1:1-4; 24:44-53

We rejoice on saints’ days never for who they are, but for who Christ is in them, for what Christ does, or has done through them. It is Christ we worship, not people.

This gets to what Luther means when he calls himself stinking maggot fodder, and says to cling to Christ, that we are not to be called by party names, but instead, are to be called Christians.

Colossians indicates St. Luke, whose…

That maggot fodder’s just weighing you down anyhow, isn’t it?

Writing in 1522, “A Sincere Admonition to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion,” Luther says,

“I ask that people make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone…How then should I – poor stinking maggot-fodder that I am – come to have people call the…

Seeing With The Eye Of The Heart – A Funeral Sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:9

Superb stuff from the Rev. Fr. Michael Marsh.

Source: Seeing With The Eye Of The Heart – A Funeral Sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:9

Happy Exchange. Pentecost 17A. Matthew 21:23-32

Martin Luther begins the Large Catechism:

“You are to have no other gods…to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have…

Envoys, Champions, and Worshippers. St. Michael and all Angels.

It is February 1st, 1939. Swing sensation, Benny Goodman, teams up with trumpet great, Ziggy Elman, and popular vocalist, Martha Tilton, to fill America’s airwaves with the #1 chart-topping hit, And the Angels Sing. The song’s sybaritic words say:

“We meet, and the angels sing The angels sing the sweetest song I ever heard… You smile, and the angels sing And though it’s just a gentle murmur at the…

Why Your Pastor is Actually Not Your Friend

Amen!