Category: podcast

Cana’s Beauty

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Biblical Text: John 2:1-11

I love this text – the Wedding at Cana – “the First of the Signs.” But I don’t find it easy to preach on. In some ways it is too deep. It captures the entirety of the biblical witness in one scene. It tells us everything we need to know about God in eleven verses. But it is exactly the beauty that adding words just takes away from. So this is something of a short list. As a Sign it tells us something about the heart and purpose of the God we have. 1) Just as marriage was the first thing instituted post creation in Genesis, so the first sign of the new covenant is an honoring of marriage. 2) Celebration and beauty have their place. Don’t let someone shame you out of them. 3) Grow in faith. Your God knows your lack and will certainly meet it. Let him know at be ready to do what he says. 4) With this God the best is always yet to come.

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Through Water and Fire

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Biblical Text: Luke 3:15-22, Isaiah 43:1-7, Romans 6:1-11

The day on the church year was the Baptism of Our Lord. The theme of the readings for the day is officially baptism, but the real theme is Fire and Water. Which seemed a little on the nose for this week of the California fires. It was a week of too much fire and too little water. But what the readings would urge us to see is both what the fire manifests and the water that we have been given. All the world is on fire. We only occasionally recognize it. And when we do, we can’t lose the moment. Don’t lose the moment to ask for the living water. That’s what this sermon explores. Walking through the fire by means of the living water.

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Growing in Wisdom/Knowing the Time

Biblical Text: Luke 2:40-52

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It comes from stanza 3 of Once in Royal David’s City. “For He is our childhood’s pattern.” That hymn applies it in the more common way that Jesus experienced everything we did. Which is meaningful for what the Athanasian creed would call “the assumption of the humanity into God.” That is Christ the new Adam who saves all humanity. But I think our Gospel lesson today asks us to think about that pattern in another way. How is this story of the late childhood of Jesus a pattern for our spiritual life?

I don’t think it is a shocking statement to say that spiritual maturity doesn’t move at the same rate as physical maturity. We can’t do anything about aging. But spiritual maturity comes about through trial. It comes about through learning to recognize the time. But also learning that unlike in mortal life which “flies forgotten as a dream” no time is ever really lost in Christ. Twelve year old Jesus is presented with a time. A Passover in Jerusalem leading to a highly flattering role as prodigy guru. Or a return to nowhere Nazareth in submission to parents. And in submission to a very different Passover in Jerusalem.

This sermon attempts to meditate on this pattern for maturity in the Spiritual life. The role of submission. Learning to know the time. Developing the heart to will the walk toward the cross. It is a very different sermon. It isn’t doctrinal, at least not in a typical dogmatic way. It isn’t straight proclamation of Christ, although that is present. It isn’t a sermon without it. It inhabits that space of practical theology. How does one grow in wisdom and stature and favor? You have to attempt to write something like this occasionally. But you are left with an awfully mystical feeling after. Because you don’t exactly know the reason why. They are mere containers for the Holy Spirit to do what He does.

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The Current Thing

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:34-35 (Luke 2:22-40)

The Current Thing is internet slang for whatever is being fought over right now but is ultimately meaningless. Nothing will change, and in a short time a new current thing will engulf everyone.

When Joseph and Mary are taking care of everything they need to legally due for purification after childbirth, they run into Simeon and Anna. And Simeon has a bunch of prophetic words. The longest being what the church calls the Nunc Demitis, Now let your servant depart in peace. But this sermon reflects on what he says to Mary directly about Jesus. The child is a sing of contradiction. And that sign is destined for the falling and rising of many, not sparing even Mary herself. It’s a deep and complex prophecy, but at the same time the eternal experience of the church. If the current thing is ultimately meaningless, Jesus is the eternal thing. People fight over and deny exactly what this sign is. But unlike the current thing, the eternal thing doesn’t move on. The eternal thing has real apocalyptic consequences. That is what this sermon for Christmas develops. We have been given a sign. A sign for the falling and rising.

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Christmas Day

Biblical Texts: Isaiah 52:7-10, Deuteronomy 4:34

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There are two phrases that the bible uses that form this meditation: Signs and Wonders and Baring His Arm. The way they are used initially is seen in the Deuteronomy verse: judgement, war, plagues and straight ahead power. But what Isaiah announces and what Christmas Day reveals is a much different wonder. God has bared his arm in a completely new way. Instead of judgement, grace. Instead of war, peace. Instead of power, the meekness of a baby in the manger. The Chirst child is a sign and wonder of a new thing. Not God’s judgement, but His salvation.

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Christmas Eve 2024

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2024 feels like to me the year gambling took over everything. That’s something of the theme of this homily. It is possible to look at the biblical story through gambler’s eyes. It’s even on old tradition in Pascal’s wager. But that really isn’t the biblical story. It is not a gamble, it’s a gift. It’s the will of God that you are his child. The child in a manger is not God rolling the dice over your soul. He is the light in the midst of the darkness. He is the love of God for you. Evermore and Evermore.

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World Turned Upside Down

Biblical Text: Luke 1:29-56

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There is a story about a Song that Lord Cornwallis had played at Yorktown – The World Turned Upside Down. That’s the opening story of this sermon. The biblical text is Mary’s Magnificat. And that psalm of the blessed virgin is the pinnacle song of the world turned upside down. There is a history of Hebrew women singing such songs. Miriam’s at the exodus. Hannah’s at having Samuel. But the best, the fulfillment is the mother of our Lord.

And the story of the world turned upside down is the reversing of everything you thought was true. In this case the world hold out that man must find god – the religious quest, the heroes journey. But that was never the way of the God of the Bible. He isn’t cruel and that quest is cruel. Because man can never find God. Which is why God came to man. And the World Turned Upside Down.

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Why are You Here?

Biblical Text: Luke 7:18-28

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There is typically a 2nd Sunday of John the Baptist in Advent. I’m not sure what people who insist on sticking with the Gaudete Sunday theme do with this text. You have to get to the Joy on the other side of the pit. And maybe that is really the answer. I pick up from last week with the thought that you have to go through John the Baptist to get to the manger. Last week we talked about the apocalyptic and the preparation. This week picks up from there, but confronts the reality that as immediate as the apocalyptic is, the life of faith is nowhere near as immediate. In fact, it often throws you in the pit, with John. And it causes you to ask questions like John’s, “Are you the Christ, or should we look for another?”

What this sermon attempts to do is preach a faith that moves from the fear of God to the love of God. And to love something you have to know it. The text is a self-revelation of God. The Kingdom of Heaven that draws near in Jesus is good news for the poor. It comes humbly. It comes under the cross. This Kingdom, as humble as it is, also comes in no other way. It comes in the person of Jesus. “Blessed in the one who is not offended at me.”

Which leads to Jesus turning the crowds – turning to us. Why are you here? Why have you come to the place that is of no earthly good? You know the answer. Will you live it?

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Rejoice! You’re Invited to the Wedding

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This is midweek advent 2 and for us the last of the Advent midweeks this year. A Short Season. Part of that is we are going caroling next week. I ran with LCMS worship’s themes for the season this year. And they did what most LCMS products do. They gave you two hours of stuff for something you want around 25 mins. That is much better than the flip which is 10 mins of content and you’ve got to fill an hour. (There is a reason BigEva places go through the refrains of the worship songs multiple times.)

The biggest problem for me with jumping off of someone else work – something I rarely do because of this – is connecting the theme and material to the lives of the people present. If I was only teaching the scriptures this wouldn’t be a problem, because most study of most things isn’t practical. You learn calculus because “it’s the next thing” not because you’ll employ it in the job. And the dirty secret of education is that the things we label least practical – say literature – are the stuff that is real. And preaching is supposed to be real. Theology is for everyday living. The bridge here is two fold. We all have piety practices and a shared one in advent is the candle wreath. There are lots of meanings given to each candle. And older form of that piety that we connect with theological virtues connected with the 4 last things: death, judgement, heaven and hell. And the Wedding Feast is the biblical picture of Heaven.

The text, the parable of the wedding banquet, establishes a contrast between the invitation to the wedding and what those who refuse to go do instead and the outcome of the choice. It is the contrast between tragedy and comedy. The invitation you have – Come to the Wedding Feast – tells you about this life. All Comedies end in a wedding. The road may be laughter and tears and cringe, but it ends in love.

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Advent Apology

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Biblical Text: : Luke 3:1-20

I’m using apology above in the original sense – a defense, an argument for something, in this case, Advent. Advent is something that has largely gone missing from the US culture. To the extent that the pressure is on churches like ours that have it to say why. This sermon spends a little time in reminiscence of how Advent disappeared. But, it spends most of its time on why Advent really is a necessary season. Of all the seasons of the church year, Advent carries with it the themes most aligned with the Christian life in this world: hope, longing, preparation. John the Baptist stands in the lectionary as the character that we must go through. You can’t get to the manger without hearing the forerunner. And he’s got a couple of messages. One is apocalyptic and the other moral. This sermon develops those for the listener’s Christian life.

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