Text: Luke 2:41-52Perhaps, when Jesus and the scholars in the Temple were talking about scripture, they were talking about sea monsters.In the Hebrew Bible that Jesus knew, there are a lot of sea monsters. As there are in psalm 148 which we just sang. And in Job: the Leviathan that God made for fun. And other great stories: There are giants in Genesis and Deuteronomy, like King Og (which is a great

Text: Luke 1:39-55 The story of the Bible is the story of God. Not the whole story of God, which starts long before us, and ends long after us, and encompasses much more than we will ever know. But it is the part of God’s story that has to do with people on this earth. Can we tell a story of God that has nothing to do with us? Maybe. But maybe not. What we do affects God and changes God; we are part

Text: Luke 3:7-18You brood of vipers! You sons and daughters of serpents! You children of snakes!What kind of people would find these words to be good news? What kind of person would take the scolding that John gives them and interpret it as gospel? Who after hearing such reproaches would then turn to John for guidance?Recognized as a prophet, imagined by some to be the savior of Israel, John draws

Text: Luke 3:1-6 Other texts: Luke 1:68-79In the middle of today’s psalm there is a hinge. On one side, the song looks back at God’s promises to God’s people. A reminder to us and to God. A quoting of past prophets. On the other side, it looks forward to the fulfillment of that promise. A new prophet. A new way.The psalm connects the past to the future. The psalm sits in the middle of the story

Text: John 18:33-38Today is the last Sunday in the church year. It is called Christ the King Sunday. You may think it is an ancient feast day of the church, as most of our Sunday feast days are. But it is not. The name (and the topic) was an invention of Pope Pius the XI in 1925. That was a tough time for the Western world, and especially Europe, which had just recently fought the first World War and

Text: Mark 13:1-8In a learned discussion about this reading a while ago, the general consensus was: What the heck?For two thousand years we have been hearing the same old predictions about the end of time. The signs of things to come by now are cliche. Nation against nation. Famines. Earthquakes. How can these be signs? Wars and rumors of wars, hardship and hunger, natural disaster, and let us add

Text: Ruth 3-4; Psalm 146Put not your trust in rulers. This from today’s psalm is hard advice to hear after just finishing an exhausting but resolved election campaign. Though some are unhappy with the result, the ferocity of the campaign tells us that most people are willing to put their trust in rulers; the only question being which ones.Psalm 146 is usually described as a psalm of trust. God is

Text: Revelation 21:1-6 Other texts: John 11:32-44, Isaiah 25:6-8The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. These words open and close the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. I am, says the voice from the throne, the A to Z, the start and the destination, the first and the last.To understand the end, we have to look at the beginning. The very beginning, the book of Genesis, the first

Text: Readings for Reformation SundayIn 1454 the invention of printing using movable type came to Europe. It was a technology whose time had come. Within thirty years, there were printing presses throughout Europe, and especially in northern Italy and central Europe.In 1492, Columbus came upon a world across the western ocean. Vast lands and cultures that until then were completely unknown to Europeans

Text: Mark 10:35-45 There is a little three-act play almost exactly in the center of Mark’s Gospel. And in each act, there is a three-part dance. The dance is the same, with some variation, in each act. For those following along, they appear in chapters 8, 9, and 10. We just heard the third and final act and saw the third dance. Jesus and the disciples are the dancers. And the dance goes like this.In

Text: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12God speaks. God speaks to us. Long ago God spoke through the prophets. In many ways and various ways, says the writer of the book of Hebrews. Now God speaks to us in an additional way. God’s words are more than just information. The power of the words of God created the universe: God said … and it was. Hebrews reminds us of the power of God’s word in the opening sentence.

Text: Mark 8:27-38 Here we are at Caesarea Philippi, on the border, an outpost of the Roman empire and the northern limit of the territory of Israel. Here we are, almost exactly in the center of Mark’s Gospel, at the hinge between Jesus’ healing ministry and his journey to death on the cross. We are at the cusp in this tragic story. Here we are, at a moment when the hint of the divinity of Jesus

Text: James 2:1-17 Faith, not works. This is the motto of Protestant Christianity and especially of the Lutheran brand. Martin Luther popularized it. He took a remark made by Paul to the Romans specifically regarding Jewish and pagan Christians and expanded it. He took what was in many ways a political analysis and transformed it into a way of thinking about our personal relationship with God. The

Text: Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18 Other texts: John 6:51-66[Last week and this week we heard the same passage from the Gospel of John. Today’s remarks carry on from last week’s.Last week we heard that Martin Luther considered Holy Communion to be daily sustenance in the fight against evil. We talked then mostly about the sustenance part, and how the body and blood of Christ feeds a hunger that we all

Text: John 6:51-69There is a magical realism in the Gospel of John. It makes John both the most-loved and the least-liked of the four Gospels. Things happen in this Gospel that happen nowhere else. The most magical stories of Jesus are in John. The conversion of water to wine. The raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead. These are works of divinity. But also in John, Jesus is the most earthy and

Text: Ephesians 4:25–5:2As we begin the prayer of great thanksgiving every Sunday, we recite a portion called the preface. The preface varies with the season, but it always starts with our proclaiming that it is our duty and our joy to praise and thank God. This phrase, “our duty and our joy,” was a new addition, added in 2006 when the current hymnal was published. Before that, we said “it

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:1-21 Robert Pirsig in his classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance coins the term “gumption trap.” This is where you find yourself when you have seemingly exhausted all the ways to accomplish what you wanted to, and none have worked. You try the same thing over and over. Your thoughts are in a cul-de-sac. Your imagination is dead and but your frustration

Text: Psalm 23 Other texts: 2 Sam 7:1-14a, Mark 6:30-34There is a kind of restlessness in king David that makes him want to put God in a little house.God objects. In all the years I’ve known you, God says to king David—and known the leaders who have come before you—have I ever asked you to build me a house? I have not lived in a house since the olden times in Egypt (and before that).But David

Text: Mark 6:1-13 Other texts: Ezekiel 2:1-5We are advised to set clear, measurable, and attainable goals. How else, we are asked, are we going to know whether we have accomplished what we set out to do? How do you know whether you have arrived if you do not know your destination? How can you plot the best path to get there? It is important to be effective and efficient, essential elements of productivity.

Text: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 Once upon a time there was a governor of Massachusetts who was enjoying a photo op at the Ashmont MBTA station. I’m not sure what the occasion was. Perhaps the opening of the renovated T station there.There were two notable things about this event. The first was that the governor had no idea where he was. He did not know where Ashmont was (which is in Dorchester) because

Text: Mark 4:25-34In Mark’s gospel the disciples just don’t get it. They desire to know Jesus. They want to understand his teachings. But they are a little thick. You can detect the frustration in Jesus as he says a little earlier in the chapter we just heard, “Don’t you understand this parable? How will you understand [any of] the parables?” And though he explains it then, and though Mark

Text: Isaiah 6:1-8, Psalm 29, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17 Trinity SundayOver the past few months people from Faith have been meeting with people from Temple Beth Shalom to talk about worship, theology, scripture, and prayer. The interns at Faith and at the synagogue organized these great discussions. At the last meeting, the topic was personal prayer: when do you pray, what do you pray for, how do

Text: Romans 8:22-27, Acts 2:1-21 This is the season of graduation and commencement. Degrees are conferred, marking the completion of years of intense work and focussed energy. It is the end of something, and congratulations all around. But by calling it commencement, we acknowledge that it is a milestone, or a portal, not a destination. We stop for a moment, we enter new territory, but we are not

Text: Acts 8:26-40 Other texts: 1 John 4:7—21Some Christians like to tell other Christians that the other Christians are not Christian. I have first-hand knowledge of such things. One of my friends, for example, prayed that another friend would become a Christian. Even though the other friend was already a pastor. One of my colleagues at seminary told me that since his fellow-students had not had

Text: Mark 16:1-8Easter SundayEntropy notwithstanding, it seems that the preference of the universe for life is strong. We do not know about how things are on the billions of life-possible planets that scientists think exist in God’s universe, but we do know how things are here. Every surface on this world is covered with life. Forests overtake cleared land in a generation. Flowers grow at bombed

Text: Mark 1:11–11 and Mark 14:1—15:47Palm SundayThe gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels. It is also moves the quickest. It starts fast and ends suddenly. Scenes are jammed together, one thing happens immediately—Mark’s favorite word—immediately after the other. Short and sweet.Which is also what sermons are supposed to be on this day. Preachers are advised, the handbook says,

Text: John 3:16 Other texts: John 3:14-21 For many Christians, John 3:16 is the most significant verse in the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that all who believe in him should not perish but may have eternal life. In one view, this verse answers all questions about the nature and purpose of Jesus and summarizes God’s plan. It is amazing because it bundles in a neat,

Text: Exodus 20:1-17 God leads the Israelites, already tired of wandering about aimlessly, to Mount Sinai. They have been freed from slavery in Egypt. The redemption they have long hoped for has been accomplished. Now what? They are stuck in a place without boundaries. They are a people without definition. No longer slaves, free but uncertain. Who are they? What shall they do next? Where shall they

Text: Mark 8:27-38 How misguided Peter seems to us from two thousand years away. We who read this story backward, so to speak, from the ending. We see it through the eyes of tradition, theology, and centuries of learned interpretation. Jesus is not to us as he was to Peter. And we know that Peter often played the fool to Jesus’ wisdom, a tool used by the Gospel writers to reveal a hard truth. Seen

Text: Genesis 9:8-17Christians, and especially Protestant Christians, and especially Lutheran Protestants, seem to think they have a lock on grace. We seem to think Luther discovered grace, which was conveyed to us only through Jesus Christ. But this is neither true nor generous. Grace is a characteristic of God. Grace is God’s work. Jesus is an embodiment of grace, but Christianity did not invent

Text: Mark 1:40-45 Why all the healing? This is the third healing story in the first chapter of Mark. Jesus has healed a person with demons, Simon's mother, and now a leper, and evidently so many more that it overwhelms even Jesus, who has to leave town. Why are these stories here? What do they tell us about the mission of Jesus in the world? There is that old joke about the man who is about to undergo

Text: Isaiah 40:10-31 It is self-evident that God created the universe. Even to those who do not believe in God.The modern western understanding is that the universe is complete in itself and more or less consistent. It is of one piece of seamless cloth. It has room for mind-boggling complexities, ineffable mysteries, and anomalous miracles. But it is not arbitrary or inconsistent at its foundation.

Texts: 1 Samuel 3:1–10, John 1:43–51 Some people find Psalm 139 to be reassuring. Some do not. We have just sung the beginning verses together. How do they strike you?You have searched me and known me, it says. You know all that I do. You know all the paths I travel. You know all my ways. You know more about me than I do myself. There is nowhere I can go where you are not, no time when you are

Text: Genesis 1.1 Other texts: Mark 1.1Let’s begin at the beginning.Stories which begin at the beginning are not about the past. They are about the present. They are ways of explaining where we are at the moment by trying to figure out how we got here. Stories that start at the beginning are always auspicious. Beginnings are not determined by events of history but by our portrayal of history. The

Text: Psalm 148 Here is a summary of Psalm 148:Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! This means you. Praise the Lord!Psalm 148 is a psalm of praise. Psalm 148 is one of the five psalms of praise at the end of the book of psalms. The word for praise—alleluia—appears a dozen times in this psalm. Praise is what this psalm