Text: Luke 2:22-40 Does God encourage Simeon’s foolish expectations? The story in the Gospel passage takes place when Jesus is just 40 days old. Brought to the Temple in Jerusalem with his parents, he is seen by Simeon. Simeon took his own faith and its teachings seriously. You would call him religious. He had been told that in his life he would see the coming of the Messiah, a man who would restore

Text: Luke 1:26-38 Other texts: Luke 1:47-55 Advent is a season of reflection. At the beginning, we are encouraged to look at our past and our present. What have we been doing? What are we doing now? But gradually over the weeks our view changes. And by today, we find ourselves looking at our present and our future. That’s how scripture leads us. Today we see Christmas just ahead. Once we start

Gospel: Mark 14:3-7, 9 Is Christmas o.k.? Do we do it wrong? Have we missed the boat on Christmas? Have we got our priorities wrong? Have we forgotten the true meaning of Christmas? Is Christmas o.k.? Or does it need repair? To hear some people, you might think it does. Some people say—and ministers say it loudest—that we don’t do it right. Some people say we are too materialistic at Christmas.

Text: Mark 1:1-8 Lots of people were expecting Christ. No one was expecting Jesus. Lots of people were hoping for a charismatic, powerful man descended from great king David to save the people of Israel. Lots of people were hoping for a wise and powerful prophet to free the people from their oppressors. Lots of people were hoping for a christ, which just means anointed one, a chosen ruler, to restore

Text: Isaiah 64:1-9 Other texts: Mark 13:24-37 Come down, God! O that you would come down! O that you would tear open the heavens and come down! There is such longing in these words, these words in Isaiah. So much loneliness. These are words of a people abandoned. People left alone. People confused and without direction. You hid yourself, they say, and we have faded like the leaves in the late autumn

Text: Amos 5:18–24 There have been in the press lots of comments about John McCain’s concession speech on Tuesday. It was gracious, relaxed, and forward-looking. Many people have said that the real John McCain had re-emerged. They said that this was the McCain they had known and admired. Some people speculated on whether the results of the election would have been different if this McCain, this

Text: Revelation 7:9-17 Other texts: Matthew 5:1-12 If you were looking for a book in the Bible that talked about the other world you might decide to turn your Bible over and open it at the back and look at Revelation. This strange book is unloved by many, including Martin Luther, who felt it had no place in the Bible. He thought it should have been left off the list when they were choosing which

Text: John 8:31-36 Other texts: Romans 3:19-28 It is an unfortunate fact of life that the older we are the creakier we get. Speed becomes slow. Fresh becomes foul. This tendency of things flowing and free to thicken up like jello in the refrigerator appears in organizations just as much as it appears in organisms. The brash entrepreneur becomes the timid boss. The upstart competitor becomes the conservative

Text: Matthew 22:15-22 There are some who say that Jesus is doing a coin trick. Holding the coin that the Pharisees give him, Jesus says: Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Give to God the things that are God’s. The trick, according to some, is that Jesus knows that nothing is really Caesar’s. Caesar claimed divinity, but Jesus knows, and we know, that Caesar was just a man. He neither

Text: Philippians 3:4b-14 Paul writes about claustrophobia and about the open air. He writes about forest-covered narrowed-horizon New England and about the open plains of the midwest where you can see the weather coming miles away. He writes about Tokyo with its twisty narrow streets and about Paris with its grand wide boulevards. He writes about oppressive, stultifying relationships and about partnerships

Text: Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 Three hundred years after the death of Jesus, the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity. Before that time Christians had been outlaws. After that time, Christianity became an authorized religion in the empire. Granting Christians authority to gather in worship made the institutional church possible. Some say that was good, some say not so good. Certainly without

Text: Matthew 20:1-16 Other texts: Jonah 3:10-4:11 A blessing is a favorable outcome. When we ask for God’s blessing, we ask God to contribute to a favorable outcome. When we sit down to eat, we say a blessing (which is also called “grace,” and I’ll talk about that in a minute). Bless this food, we might say. Meaning make this food be good for us, keep us healthy, gives us energy for life.

Text: Matthew 18:21-22 Other texts: Romans 14:10 Imagine. Imagine a world in which people held grudges. Imagine a world in which people extracted revenge for sins committed against them. Or against their friends, or even their ancestors. Imagine a world of blood feuds. Imagine a world in which people executed others because of their sins. Imagine a world in which wars were fought over the sins of

Text: Matthew 18:15-20 Other text: Ezekiel 33:7-11 It is not surprising that Ezekiel’s audience was discouraged and disillusioned. Their identity as a people and as a nation—the people and nation of Israel—was eroding. Who they were depended on a notion of God who had given them a land that was theirs to keep, a dynasty of powerful kings who would always rule, and a special spot in God’s

Text: Romans 12:9-21 Other texts: Matthew 16:21-28 To be holy means to be separate. That’s what holy is: a place, a people, a culture separate from the world around it. Holy does not mean religious. A sanctuary is a holy place. That is what the word sanctuary means. A sanctuary is a place removed from the rest of the world. When people say in common speech that they seek sanctuary, they mean

Text: Matthew 16:13-20 Other texts: Romans 12:1-8 The word “church” appears only two times in all the Gospels. The first time is in the passage we just heard. The second time is also in Matthew, two chapters later. It is useful to point this out so that we church people do not get to feel too self-important. Jesus spends next to no time in his ministry establishing, concocting, or even discussing

Text: Matthew 14:22-33 How much faith, exactly, is a little faith? Is a little faith too little? Or is it just little enough? A little faith the size of a mustard seed, Jesus tells us earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, is enough to command a mountain to go from here to there. How much faith is there in this story of Jesus and Peter and the stormy sea? Half a seed, maybe. Or was it more like two seeds. It

Text: Matthew 14:13-21 It was no picnic. The 5000 men and who knows how many women and children had gathered not to have a good time. They had not come for a meal. They had come to be healed. Often when we gather with others to eat it is a time of celebration. To remember anniversaries, to celebrate birthdays (as we will today after worship), to mark momentous beginnings like weddings or baptisms.

Text: Psalm 119:129-136 Other texts: 1 Kings 3:5-12 Young king Solomon prayed for wisdom. I am only a little child, he prayed. I know nothing. I do not know how to go out or how to go in. Yet I am a man of great responsibility. How can I govern the people without wisdom? Where will that wisdom come from? Solomon prayed. God answers Solomon’s prayer. I do now, according to your request, give you

Text: Genesis 28:10-22 Other texts: Psalm 139 Jacob was in trouble. He had not been a good brother to his twin brother Esau. Esau was out to get Jacob, and for good reason. Jacob had cheated Esau. Twice. First Jacob had cheated him of his birthright, the right as first born to inherit. Then Jacob cheated him of his father’s blessing. There was very little to like about Jacob and not much to like.

Text: Matthew 13:1-0 The Bible is authoritative. When you start thinking about theology, which you might call philosophy about God, the first thing you do is establish what you consider authoritative. That is, if you want to settle an argument, to whom can you turn? Who has the final say? What is the source of information that is at the foundation of what you say? One common source of authority is

Text: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Jesus offers lots of guidance, most of which we don’t follow. Jesus makes lots of suggestions, most of which we don’t take. Jesus gives us a few commandments, most of which we don’t honor. Jesus makes lots of promises, most of which we decline to accept. This is not something we need to be ashamed about. We say that Jesus’ teachings are teachings of grace. That

Text: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 Healing is as much at the center of human existence as suffering is. We are not just creatures who suffer, we are also creatures who are relieved of suffering. We get sick and then we get well. Our vocabulary of faith holds words like renew, restore, redeem, repent, resurrect, refresh, reborn. Words of healing. Jesus is a healer. It was an important part of his ministry

Text: Matthew 7:21-29 Blah blah blah. We are none of us short of words. We are generous to a fault with the words that come from our mouths. We are rich to overflowing with the abundance of words that come to our ears and eyes. Everybody has something to say and there are lots of ways they can tell us about it. We are a wordy culture. Words are the primary output of our economy. Words, more often

Text: Genesis 1:1-2:4a Other texts: Psalm 8 Yesterday a few folks came to work on the garden and grounds of the church. The sun shone. The air was perfect. Plants were growing. People walked by, happy and content. It was good. It was very good. The story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis is rich in powerful themes. The extraction of order out of chaos. The power of making things by naming

Text: Acts 2:1-21. Other texts: Luke 17:5 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. In the time of Jesus, these places spanned from one end of the earth to the other. These were people from everywhere, from

Text: John 14.1-14 In my father’s house are many rooms, Jesus tells the disciples, and he is going to prepare a place for us. I would like to know more about those rooms. I would like to know exactly what Jesus means by these verses. I want to know when this is going to happen, and how, and I want to know what those rooms look like. And so do the disciples. Disciples who in this reading are clearly

Text: Luke 17:11-19 What is a gate? If you are in prison, a gate means one thing. If you are in a castle, it means something altogether different. If you are in prison, the gate keeps you in. It is a place you do not want to be, but you cannot get out. If you are in a castle, the gate keeps the other people out. It is a place you do want to be, and you do not want anybody from the outside getting

Text: Luke 24:13-35 There is a theory of the physical world that says that in every instant things decide what they will become in the next instant. In this theory there is a kind of timeout between the past and the future. In that tiny moment, a thing has a chance to become the same as it was, or become something new. It pays attention to the things around it and makes a choice of what to be. Mostly,

Text: John 20:19-31 It hardly seemed a joyful occasion. Even after Mary had come to tell them what she had discovered. That Jesus had risen from death and that she and Jesus had spoken. “Go to my brothers,” Jesus had told her, “and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” So she did. She “went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen

Text: John 3:1-9 What is your question, Nicodemus? What do you want to know, Nicodemus? What do you want? Nicodemus comes in the night. He comes in the darkness. Under protection of the night. In the dark. He comes, perhaps, at risk to himself. Fearful, perhaps, we don’t know, of his fellow Pharisees. He comes, perhaps, in secret. To meet this man Jesus. Nicodemus speaks to Jesus. He tells Jesus

Text: Matthew 17:1-9 Let’s begin at the beginning. If only we could find the beginning. We have a model of our lives. The big picture. Sort of a scheme of things. A common model is that our lives are lived in stages. Grammar school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, post-doc. Or: Dating, courtship, marriage. Or: That time when I lived in Boston, when I lived in California, when

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 The Lutheran church in the U.S. is fostering splinter groups. Some people are not happy with the way things are going. Some folks do not like the agreement Lutherans have made with the Episcopalians. Some don’t like the agreement made with the UCC and Presbyterian churches. Some don’t like the stance of the church on the ordination of gay or lesbian pastors, some think

Text: John 1:29-42 It seems a little foolish. It seems a little foolish to follow this man to who-knows-where for who-knows-what purpose. To follow Jesus on the strength of John’s exclamation: Look, here is the lamb of God. As if that were a reason. But it turned out that that was reason enough for Andrew and the other disciple (who does not even get mentioned by name). Enough to abandon one kind

Text: Ephesians 3:1-12 Other texts: Matthew 2:1-12 Herod wanted to know. He was ignorant. He knew a little something. He wanted to know more. Herod knew what he had heard through rumor, gossip, and from mysterious travelers. What little Herod knew made him afraid. Herod was a frightened man. Anyone who rules through coercion, through violence, is an frightened man. Anyone who rules by making people