By Means

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Biblical Text: Numbers 21:4-9, John 3:14-21

We talk about the sacraments as “the means of grace”, in the everyday world we might refer to someone as a person of means, but I don’t think we really know what that word – means – means. Nor do we really plumb its depths. We don’t for two reasons. The first is that most of us are secular. We have buffered ourselves from what what Nicene Creeds calls the invisible creation. Not that it isn’t there and doesn’t effect us, simply that we deny it, usually with some fantastical pseudo-science. Although for me the best denials are the straight up “didn’t happen, who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes.” The second though is a spiritual reason. We think we want God to act immediately. We think we want the lightning bolt. This sermon is an exploration of God working through means and or reactions to that fact.

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A New Want-er

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Biblical Text: Exodus 20:1-17, John 2:13-22 (1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

This sermon might be a bit intellectual, but it is lent which is a season for some challenging fare. The challenge here is to think about what does the cleansing of the temple of our body. Our first answer is always the law. We think that we can control the passions. We think that our heads control our hearts. After that falsehood breaks, I think we often pursue some “middle ground”. We want to build a temple or sacred booth in this world. We clear out a bit of the world. We put our hope in something like “beauty” or “the arts”. And it is not that the law, or “the arts”, or any of these things are wrong. It is just that tomorrow, all the money changers are back anyway.

Our hope isn’t in anything in this world. Not in the law which is written on our stone hearts, although that dead thing can’t follow it. Not in the prettiest work of human hands, even though those might move the heart occasionally. Our hope is in faith in the cross and resurrection – the work of Christ – alone. We need a new heart, a new want-er. And that only comes about by the foolish work of the Spirit.

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Signs of the Kingdom

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Biblical Text: Genesis 17:1-21

The text focuses on two things, first the reiteration and extension of the covenant promise to Abraham and not explicitly through Sarah, and second circumcision as the mark of the old covenant. That first point focus is about the sovereignty of the God. The Kingdom of God comes how and when it wills. That second point invites the comparison of the old covenant and the new. What are the signs that the Kingdom has come to us? Namely baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Along the way we talk about ways we try to hurry the kingdom and where our hope comes from.

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A Tomb Like Walk

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Biblical Text: Genesis 22:1-18

The testing of Abraham is one of those texts that honestly a 21st century American preacher doesn’t feel qualified to preach. But there is so much in it that is for our good. The types of Christ are clear, but what I wanted to concentrate on in this sermon were two things: the trial or test and offering up a trial to God or drawing near to Him. The trial doesn’t tell God anything about us that he didn’t know. The trial tells us what God already knows about us. And it gives us the chance to draw near to God. This sermon, through Abraham’s experience, attempts to understand what that mean and how we can be prepared for the day of trial.

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Ash Wed – Are You Weary?

Biblical Text: 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:13

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Ash Wednesday is typically about repentance. Now there are a bunch of ways that our need for repentance can manifest. This is a sermon about what that feeling of weariness that I think we are all feeling it telling us.

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Prophetic Rhyming

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Biblical Text: 2 Kings 2:1-12

The fancy word is typeology or archetype. The meaning is a person or character or action that is a distilled example of human experience. What makes the scriptures so powerful, at least if you catch the vision of them, is that the experience of Israel with GOD is the distilled archetype. The New Testament is THE specific example. The life of Christ is the fulfillment of all the archetypes, because in this one life we have God meeting one in on Christ. And seeing as our lives are conformed to his, they are going to rhyme with Israel’s experience. This sermon first looks at a couple of the rhymes of Elijah and Elisha in broad strokes. Then it looks at the specific call of our text and how our lives might rhyme with “the chariots and horsemen of Israel” and asks if we want them to.

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Losing Questions

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Biblical Text: Isaiah 40:21-31

Winning solves a lot of problems; losing brings on a lot of questions. And man was Israel on a losing streak. The good news is that each question drew Israel back towards God, to knowing the God who had entered into covenant with them more fully. This sermon examines a couple of those questions, Isaiah’s answers to them, and how they apply to us.

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Prophet Check

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Biblical Text: Deuteronomy 18:15-20

The text is Moses’ promise of “a prophet like me”. Prophet is one of those words that feels slightly archaic, but it just isn’t. It is used all the time. What this sermon does is hopefully three things:

  1. Define what a prophet is
  2. Understand what “a prophet like me” means, how that is different from many standard uses, and how Jesus is the only one who really qualifies
  3. And finally equip everyone how to not get suckered by people claiming Moses like prophetic authority.

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A Prophetic Turn

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Biblical Text: Jonah 3:1-10, really all of Jonah

The Jonah story is so much more than just a fish tale. It is a tale of repentance. It is a tale of what moves God. It is a tale of prophets going the wrong way while everyone around them goes the right way. It is a tale about learning to desire grace. It is a tale of seeing the signs and applying them to ourselves. It is about walking in joy even if the way is strange and hard. In short it is a tale of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. This sermon attempts to bring that stuff into the foreground, and put the whale in background.

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Gene Porter Service

I’m sorry for our technical difficulties for any who attempted to stream the service. After checking things out I don’t think it was on this end. Changing nothing, it all worked about 2 PM. I usually don’t post funeral services because they feel like a close private thing, which the internet is not. But, due to the troubles earlier, I’ve edited and put together the lessons and sermon from Gene’s service.

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