Don’t Know Much
Text: Luke 20:27-38
We don’t know much about most things. We don’t know how the brain works. We don’t know how gravity works. We don’t know how life began, or what dark energy is.
Read MoreAuthor: Chris Kelly
Saints, All
Text: Luke 6:20-31
Who are the saints that we commemorate on this day, All Saints Sunday?
If you were raised in another tradition, or attended confirmation class some years ago, you might think of saints as people marked and named as special by the church. Krister Stendahl, Lutheran pastor, scholar, one-time bishop of Sweden, and former dean of Harvard Divinity School, once was a guest preacher at a church on Nantucket. It was the feast of Peter and Paul. But his wife, he told us at the time, had had to remind him that in the Episcopal church, in which he was preaching, it was the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Read MoreWhat Angels Say
Text: Daniel 10:10-14, 12:1-3
Michael and All Angels
Today, in a moment, we will welcome Christina, Jeff, and Nicole to membership in this church. One of the many good things about the ceremony, which is called the Affirmation of Baptism, is that we begin the confession of faith (the creed) with a promise to “renounce … the forces of evil, the devil, and all his empty promises.” This certainly reflects the view of Martin Luther, for whom evil was personified in the devil, or satan, and was a force active against God and good. Luther was said to have recommended that we spit in the devil’s face, and in the Lutheran theme song, A Mighty Fortress, “the old satanic foe” is thwarted in his quest to “work us woe.”
Read MorePassionate God is Heartbroken
Text: Luke 15:1-10
Other texts: Exodus 32
It is possible, I suppose, to have a god who might do anything. Or at least to have a theology that claims it so. But could you praise and worship a god who is capricious, who may not keep promises, who cannot be taken at one’s word?
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Read MoreSeeker, Not Sought
Text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Other texts: Luke 14:25-33
Happy are those who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, sings the psalm for today. Psalm 1, the one that introduces the 149 others. Happy are those who have not lingered in the way of sinners. Happy are those who do not sit with the scornful. They meditate on God’s teaching day and night. And everything they do prospers.
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Read MoreLiving It Up
Text: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Other texts: Luke 14:1, 7-14
We seek the good life.
What kind of life is that? We know the answer in the core of our being. We know, as it says in Hebrews, that it has little to do with the love of money. It is not nourished by accumulation. Instead, it has something to do with contentment, peace, humor, generosity, companionship.
Read MoreThe Prayer the Lord Taught Us
Text: Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying.
What was he saying? What was he thinking? He was praying in a certain place, it says. Did the place matter? Did he stand or kneel or sit in a special way? What did he do with his hands? His head?
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Read MoreRestorative Justice
Text: Luke 10:38-42
In an informal poll regarding today’s reading from Luke conducted over the past two weeks, the results show that 90% of the people can’t stand Mary. Maybe you are one of them.
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Read MoreCareless Grace
Text: Luke 10:25-37
We bring a lot of baggage to this reading in Luke. That is how it is with scripture. Reading scripture is a conversation between you and the text. The text stays the same. You change a lot. You come with your history, your worries and hopes that depend on current circumstances, the events of the day both global and local. It is no doubt a good thing that this is so. Otherwise, what is the point?
Read MoreGo Humbly
Text: Luke 10:1–11, 17–20
Marshal McLuhan, a thoughtful philosopher of modern culture, wrote that the medium is the message. The delivery vehicle of the message conveys the message at least as much if not more than the content. At the time, this was a radical idea. That was fifty years ago. Now everyone knows this; the idea goes without saying. But it is not really a new idea. In the story we just heard in the Gospel of Luke, the point is at least as much about the messengers—the medium—as it is the news they bring.
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