Tag: Christ Alone

Father’s Welcome

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Biblical Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

The parable of the Prodigal Son is the text. It remains one of the few biblical stories in common purchase. Which is good because at it most simplistic it is the Old Old Story. It is the pure gospel of the Father’s Welcome. But Jesus’ parables are always deeper than the simple application if we are willing to ponder them a bit. This sermon is an attempt to do that. Starting with the fact that the Bible doesn’t seem to like eldest children. There are three main points:

  1. The Providence of God is for everyone. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.
  2. There is only one way into the Father’s house, as a son.
  3. The feast is going to happen, the question is if you are there. (And to be there means to live as a member of the household whose currency is love.)

Give it a listen and think along with it. I could be wrong, but we tend to emphasize the love of God, but we don’t really think about the means. We think about it as some generic force that has no implications. But the parable brings one son back, but at the end leaves the son who had never left outside the festival tent.

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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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