Sermons
Sermons are part of a conversation between the preacher and the congregation.
You can read most of the sermons preached at Faith in the past few years here. This archive is a blog, which is duplicated on Blogger. You may add comments here or in the blog if you wish.
If you would like to see the readings planned for the next few weeks, click here.
Christians Wear Funny Clothes
December 27, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Colossians 3:12-17
Other texts: Luke 2:41-52We spoke on Christmas Eve about all the possibilities inherent in the birth of a child. All the uncertainties and hopes that go with new birth. And how we can imagine all the things that might happen to a new infant. We hope that all children have lives of grace. We know that some might revolutionize the world. We have read that Mary pondered the future
Baby Jesus
December 24, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Luke 2:1-7
Other texts: Christmas Eve readingsThere is usually no sermon preached on Christmas Eve at Faith. This is a short homily that opened the worship service.It is tempting to embellish the story of the birth of Jesus. It is tempting to make more of it than it appears in the Bible. Which is not much. Luke’s Gospel contains an extensive story of Jesus’ birth, and in Luke the birth itself
Why Go to Church This Sunday
December 13, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Philippians 4:4–7Christians, and especially Lutherans, have a bad habit of treating the apostle Paul as if he were a theologian. We hear Martin Luther quoting Romans and think that Paul’s most important contribution was to explain a doctrine of justification and grace.But Paul was before all a missionary. He was in modern terms a church planter. Without Paul there would be no churches to
How to Pray
December 6, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Philippians 1:3–11
I want to talk today about praying. I’m going to talk about ways we might pray. And also about things that get in the way of praying. And I’m going to start with Paul’s prayers in his letter to the Philippians.
Paul is enthusiastic, a word which mean infused by the spirit. He writes to the church he started in Philippi. Even though Paul is in prison when he writes
Sabbath FAQs
November 29, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Genesis 1:1-5, 2:1-4
On Thursday, the city was deserted. On Thanksgiving day in Cambridge you could have walked down the middle of the street without danger. There were no cars, few people, no commerce. It was great!
It was like the good old days. In those times in Massachusetts there were things called Blue Laws. They required most businesses and retail stores to be closed on Sunday. No shopping
That's What You Say
November 22, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 18:33-37
Today is called Christ the King Sunday. But it would be more Biblical to call it Christ Not-the-king Sunday. Or maybe Who-says-Christ-is-King Sunday. For it is others, not Jesus, who call him king. In all four Gospels, Pilate asks in one way or another if Jesus is king. And in all four Gospels Jesus answers in one way or another “That’s what you say.”
Neither God the Father
Unimagination
November 15, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 13:1-8
Other texts: Daniel 12:1-3
Forty years ago it seemed like the world was on a roll. It was the beginning, everyone thought, of a new age. The dawning of the age of Aquarius. The Berlin wall, a symbol of the old, national, hateful way of international politics, had fallen. And not long after, our scary enemy, the Soviet Union, would collapse. Possibilities were expanding. Humans were
No More Tears
November 1, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Isaiah 25:6-9
Other texts: Wisdom of Solomon 3.1-9, Revelation 21.1-6a
How greedy life is. How greedy we are for life.
Life is good. We take pleasure in things. We are pleasure creatures, enjoying a good view as much as a good dinner. A good conversation, a good hug, and good handshake. A good friend. We are made to enjoy life, to enjoy living, to enjoy the company of others, to enjoy the beauties
Reformation Freedom
October 25, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Texts: Romans 3:19–28 and John 8:31–36
Preacher: Pastor Seitz
Today we celebrate the Reformation and we remember our denomination’s name-sake, Martin Luther.
The story of Luther is well known among many of us but just to highlight a couple of his accomplishments lets start with the verse attributed with starting the Reformation. It is the last verse from the Second lesson, Romans 3:28 “For
Money and Abundance
October 11, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 10:17-31
A man approaches Jesus and tells him in so many words that he would like to live a good and Godly life. A noble goal. Since the man was already righteous, meaning he was following the rules of his faith, he no doubt expected a little mild coaching, or a tip of the day. Instead, Jesus tells the man he has to sell all he owns and give the proceeds to the poor. It is hard to follow
Once Upon a Time Things Were Bigger
October 4, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Psalm 8
Once upon a time we were bigger. A lot bigger.
In the time of Moses, in the time of Jesus, even up to the time of Martin Luther, we were bigger. Human beings could walk from one end of the universe to the other. One end being the west coasts of Africa and Britain, the other end being the east coasts of Asia. Humans could cross the universe on foot in less than a year. And did. Luke tells
Look at the Children
September 20, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 9:30-37
As Jesus starts talking in Mark’s Gospel about being first and last, there is a shift of character. If you listen carefully, you might hear it. If you were reading along you might have seen it. Jesus starts talking about servants but ends up talking about children. Hardly a big deal. But people have made much of this small change and have tried hard to reconcile it. They point
The Self of Jesus
September 13, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 8:27-38
Oliver Sacks, the observant neurologist, has spent most of his life trying to discover what it means to have a self. What is it about our selves that makes them seem to be continuous? What is it about our selves that makes them seem to be ours, to belong to us? If someone cannot remember anything that happened more than five minutes ago, does that person have one self or many? If
Justice First
September 6, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 7:24-37
Other texts: Isaiah 35:4-7a, Psalm 146
Matthew steals this story from the Gospel of Mark. Mark was the first Gospel to be written, and this stealing from him is common. Both Luke and Matthew take Mark as one of their major sources of information. And both then often modify what Mark has to say. As it happens here.
People have had a hard time reconciling the sweet compassion of Jesus
You Forget Yourself
August 30, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: James 1:17-27
A young woman, speaking on the floor of the Lutheran national Assembly last week, said that the church is losing young members. She meant not just the Lutheran church but most Christian churches. She said that the reason that was happening was because too many Christians seemed to be hypocritical. “We have very good hypocrisy detectors,” she said. She was talking about a particular
Eating. A Difficult Teaching.
August 23, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 6:51-69
Let’s be perfectly clear. As if that were possible.
We would like to be clear about doctrine. How does salvation work, for example? We would like to be clear about morality. What is good behavior and what is not? We would like to be clear about ethics. What is just? We would like to be clear about the future. What will happen to us and when? We struggle, sometimes, to make sense
The Christian Quest and Getting to the Future
August 16, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Luke 17:11-19
A visitor to Faith Kitchen last week asked how we preserve faith in humanity. It was an odd question, since it seems to me that Faith Kitchen is a good example of human activity. People were feeding people. People who might otherwise be crabby with one another were getting along just fine. People who might have crossed to the other side of the road to avoid one another were sitting
Food, Glorious Food
July 26, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Texts: John 6:1-21, 2 Kings 4:42-44, Psalm 145:10-19
Last month marked the eighth anniversary of Faith Kitchen [Faith’s community meal program]. On that day eight years ago, three folks from Faith and one guest sat at the table where we now serve Sunday coffee hour. At the next meal a month later, on July 26, there were no guests. But within six months Faith Kitchen was serving 30 people at each
I Shall Not Want. I Wish.
July 19, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Psalm 23
Other texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Mark 6:30-34
George Orwell’s classic novel, Animal Farm, was in the news the past couple of days. That’s because Amazon.com had suddenly and without notice or explanation deleted that book from all the Kindle ebook readers in the world. They also removed another Orwell classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both these books deal with how pathological and repressive
Nothing
July 5, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 6:1-13
There is a kind of story that comes in many versions. They all go something like this:
On a stormy night / [on] a moonless night / a winter night,
an old man / a crippled woman / a starving child
comes to a monastery / [comes to] a country inn / the home of a rich man / a farmhouse / the church
and asks for money / [asks] for food / for a place to sleep / for help for a friend.
But
Us and Dirt
June 28, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 5:21-43
It turns out that if you put a metal plate in a solution of the right kind of atoms, the atoms will naturally form into chain-like molecules call lipids. The lipids like to hang around together, and when they do, they like to stand side by side, with their heads all facing up, like a picket fence. The fence-like thing is floating in water, and sometimes one end of the fence meets
Boat Ride
June 21, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 4:35-41
It is easy to imagine the expressions on the faces of the disciples. A mix of accusation, incredulity, and terror.
Why did Jesus send them out in this boat if he knew that a storm was brewing? How could he sleep so soundly when the waves were swamping the boats? Maybe they were like the waves described in the psalm that were so big they ascended into the heavens and the troughs
The Birds and the Trees
June 14, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 4:26–34
Other texts: Ezekiel 17:22–24, 1 Samuel 16:1, 6-12
We just heard two of what are called Jesus’ agricultural parables. It turns out that Jesus wasn’t much of a farmer—he was a city boy—and some of these parables show that. For example, the mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds, as any gardener would know. But the parables are not instructions about gardening,
Action in Trust
June 7, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 3:1-17
Let’s say you want to get to San Francisco. And let’s say you were starting here in Cambridge. Here are some ways you could do that. You could wander around aimlessly, hoping that in time you’d stumble into San Francisco. Probably not going to happen. Or better, you could realize that San Francisco is almost due west of Cambridge, and that if you had a compass you could walk
Praying for the Home Team
May 24, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Acts 1:15-26
There seem to be some verses missing in the reading today from the Book of Acts.
Here’s how that could be. There is a committee that chooses the readings for each Sunday. On the committee are people from lots of Christian denominations. Sometimes they leave out some verses in the middle of the reading. As they did today. Sometimes they do that because the middle verses are distracting,
Baptism: Members of One Another
May 17, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Acts 10:44-48
Welcome, T___. The readings for today align nicely with your baptism.
Today we heard the second of two baptism stories from the book of Acts. The two are similar. Last week a member of the Ethiopian court was baptized. He talked to the disciple Philip about Jesus, and after hearing what Philip had to say, asked him “Look, here is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?”
The Vine-Branch Connection
May 10, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 15:1-8
It is increasingly clear that the difference between our insides and what’s outside is not that great.
It turns out that we are not independent creatures, isolated by skin and by preference from the biologic soup in which we live, or from the physical wear and tear on our various parts. Nor are we isolated from our insides, as if our selves were separate from the organic machinery
Heart Sick Calling
May 3, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: 1 John 3:16-24
Other texts: John 10:11-18
Why do we have fire departments when there is no fire?
Every day all day fire fighters are waiting in fire stations, fire trucks at the ready, fire hydrants cleaned and checked. Yet most of the time we have no fires.
The question is absurd and the answer obvious. We will for sure have a fire some day, some day soon. Fires threaten the individual good
Middle of a Love Story
April 26, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 1:1-15
The beginning begins in the middle.
Unlike in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the story of Jesus in Mark begins with a grownup man. A grownup man on his way to work at his new job. There is no story of the baby Jesus in the manger in Mark, and there is no story of the young wise Jesus speaking in the temple. And unlike in the Gospel of John, there is no cosmological poem.
In Mark,
A Life Complete
April 5, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 11:1-11 and 14:1-15:47
A weird thing about the church calendar is that it breaks one story into lots of little ones. And the lectionary, which divides the whole life of Jesus into 52 bite-sized chunks, sometimes makes our faith seem like the Highlights of Jesus Show. Christmas, some miracles, a few great speeches, then crucifixion and resurrection. It is especially so today, on this Sunday
Moments of Resistance
March 29, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 12:20-31
They asked Jesus a question. Jesus answered them. But the answer seemed to have nothing to do with the question.
The question was: Can these Greek folks come and see you? The Greeks came to Philip. And Philip came to Andrew. And Andrew and Philip came to Jesus.
The answer was: The hour has come. But that was no answer at all. Jesus did not mean the hour had come to meet the Greeks.
Eternal Living
March 22, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 3:14-21
Other texts: Numbers 21:4-9
Horrible food. And such small portions.
Why have you brought us out of the land of Egypt? complain the Israelites. Talk about ungrateful. They had been in Egypt because they had been slaves. Moses with God’s help freed them from slavery. Now, in the desert, the old days in Egypt perhaps don’t look so bad. They have turned their gaze to the past, to
Effective Expedient Expert Idols
March 15, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 2:13–22
Other texts: Exodus 20:1–17
Lutherans have a lot to say about the Law. When Lutherans speak of the the Law, the Law of the Bible, the Old Testament Law of the Torah, not the books in the statehouse, it is always with a capital “L.” Few other Christian denominations make such a big deal of the Law. Some Christians see the Law as at best an outmoded irrelevance to them. Something
Good Deal
March 1, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Genesis 9:8-17
As I said before the service, there is going to be a quiz about the first reading, the one about Noah. So, here are the questions.
Question 1. This passage describes a promise. What is the promise?
Question 2: In this passage God says “I have set my rainbow in the clouds.” What is the purpose of the rainbow?
Question 3: To whom is the promise made?
There is a fourth question,
Down to Earth
February 22, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 9:2-9
On the cover of the bulletin you’ll see Raphael’s interpretation of the Transfiguration, the formal name for the story we just heard in the Gospel reading. This image was painted around the same time that Martin Luther was stirring up the Reformation. In real life the painting is about thirteen feet high by nine feet wide. I would guess it is a little more impressive at that size
Healing into a New Story
February 15, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Mark 1:40-45
Other texts: 2 Kings 5:1-14
No one emerges from an illness the same way he or she went in. Even when cured by a miracle of the spirit or by a miracle of medicine, illness changes us.
Naaman, commander of the army, had leprosy. A vaguely defined and incurable skin disease. After much drama, hurt pride, fortunate intervention, and God’s work through the prophet Elisha, Naaman was
To Be Right or To Be Good
February 1, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Is it better to be right or to be good?
It is the question that Paul asks, in a round-about way, of the people of Corinth. And therefore asks us.
Perhaps you will say that to be right is to be good. When we act, we should act on what we know. (The Corinthians would agree). When we do, you might say, then it is likely that the outcome is best. To act in ignorance and to act
Big Talk
January 25, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Other texts: Mark 1:14-20
Someone said this past week that one thing that Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama had in common was their intense belief in the power of words.
Martin Luther had the same belief. Luther was a preacher and a teacher. It is hard to preach or teach if you don’t think anything you say makes a difference. Luther said quite a few things. His collected writings,
"Don't call me late for dinner"
January 18, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: John 1:43-51
Other texts: 1 Samuel 3:1-10
Sometimes it seems as if our destiny were in our own hands. Sometimes is seems as if we have some control of our future. But usually it isn’t, and usually we don’t. And that can be good news.
Do you remember as a child looking out the windshield of your parent’s car as it moved along the road? It seemed that the road magically straightened out.
Hooray! God is Good
January 4, 2009
| Link to this sermon
Text: Sirach 24:1-12
Other texts: Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21, John 1:1-18
We are about to emerge from the season of gifts. Epiphany marks the last of the twelve days of Christmas. As in “On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.” Did someone give you something that you wanted this season? Did someone give you something you did not want? Some little something that you now have to