Text: Colossians 3:12-27 December 31, 2006 Welcome, children of God, holy and beloved. Modern Protestant Christianity is a long on strategy and short on tactics. Or to be more churchy: long on theology and short on practices. Or what Christianity calls disciplines: things we can do to live the kind of faithful life we would like to live. It is great to know that we are justified by God's grace, but

Text: Luke 1.47-55 December 24, 2006 Let’s not make Mary out to be too sweet. Let’s not put her in a beautiful blue robe (why is it always blue?), with blushing cheeks and flowing hair, a contemplative smile, and a halo-like glow surrounding her. Mary was a street kid, or would be if she lived now in the city. She was very poor. Her husband-to-be, Joseph, was a carpenter, not an admired craftsman

Text: Zephaniah 3:14-20It seems that a confluence of factors has put the stress-o-meter off the scale. I know that because I can see stress in your faces and the faces of just about everyone I know. I hear it in your voices and the voices of others. I see it in your lives and the lives of others. The stress-o-meter rises whenever there is something to stress about. And the stress-o-meter tells me that

Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16 December 3, 2006 What is your name? In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts your name is what you are known by. If you decide to change your name from Fred to Ferdinand you just tell everyone you meet that your name is Ferdinand. And it is. No need to go to court or post listing in the paper or anything like that. According to the law, your name is not unchangeable and inherent,

Text: Mark 13Other text: Daniel 12:1-3November 19, 2006 Robert Pirsig, in his classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, coins the term “gumption trap.” A gumption trap is where you find yourself when you have done everything you can and things still don’t work. It happens when you cannot figure out how to get that stupid bearing back in its seat or that rusted retainer off the

Text: John 11:32-44 November 5, 2006 It is one thing to make an example of your friend. It is another thing altogether to be there at his graveside. There is a back-story to today’s reading in the Gospel of John. A couple of days earlier someone had brought a message to Jesus. His friend Lazarus was ill. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed Jesus

Text: John 8:31-35October 29, 2006 This is a big day for Martin Luther. We sing hymns that he wrote, and we hear his words quoted. The Lutheran church worldwide is especially proud of Martin Luther on this day, and will celebrate the day more energetically than most other Protestant denominations. You would be forgiven if you thought that the name of this day was Martin Luther Sunday. But it is not.

October 22, 2006Text: Mark 10:35-45Last week the Greater Boston Food Bank held a luncheon for the people who work in what they call agencies. The Food Bank is where we get almost all our food for Faith Kitchen, and we are an agency. An agency is some organization that feeds people by giving them food or serving them meals, as Faith Kitchen does. Once a month someone from Faith goes down to the Food

October 8, 2006Text: Mark 10:2-16Preacher: Pastor Stein The Pharisees were wise in the ways of the world. They knew what’s what. They weren’t babes in the woods. They had been around. They weren’t born yesterday. So when they asked Jesus this question about divorce, they already knew the answer. They were not trying to get new information. They were trying to trip Jesus up. To catch him in making

October 1, 2006 Text: Mark 9:38-50 In institutions there is a tendency to favor structure over vitality. Even though, as in the body, it is the vitality of the parts that strengthens and preserves the whole. Our living, energetic cells, constantly moving and making, keep us intact and sturdy. The structure of an institution is a myth. Without vitality, there is no structure. Without vitality, structure

September 24, 2006 Readings: Psalm 54 & Mark 9:30-37 The problem with claiming to be righteous is that we don’t know if we are righteous. Sometimes not. Probably not. The problem with claiming to be the greatest is that we have no idea how great we are. Sometimes not so great. Not very great. The word “righteous” means that we are right with God. Aligned with God. Aligned also with God’s

September 17, 2006 Text: Mark 8:27-38 Jesus had a lot on his mind. Lutherans are adamant about the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus was God in the flesh. More than others, even, Lutherans insist that Jesus was 100% divine and 100% human at the same time. That balance is even. Not mostly divine and a little bit human. Not mostly human with a touch of the divine. Not a god in human disguise, walking

September 10, 2006 Text: James 2:1-17 My neighbor tries to start his old, rickety truck, whose springs are shot and whose bed always is full of some kind of junk or other. The truck won’t start. Urrm, urrm. The starter turns. Urrm. Again. And again. Finally it catches. He backs up, just missing clobbering the car behind, then surges forward, just missing mine in front. I surprise myself by thinking:

September 3, 2006 Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Preacher: Pastor Seitz Today’s Gospel text presents Jesus in a very common situation. He is being challenged by “Pharisees and teachers of the Law.” They gathered around Jesus. They sat and watched the disciples and some were eating without washing their hands. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law ask: Why don’t your disciples live according

June 4, 2006 Text: Acts 2:1-21 We are home to images of God. Being creatures made of flesh and bone, our minds try to imagine the unimaginable and to turn the indescribable into substance. How else can we understand things? We know the world through the senses of sight, sound, touch, and also the senses of hunger and sorrow and exhilaration. In our minds we paint pictures of the God that we know