Dry Bones Clean Cut Off

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Biblical Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Recording Note: Sorry about the voice, might be a little scratchy, especially early. A member was nice enough to get me a bottle of water shortly in. Thought the minor cold had past, but it caught me in the pulpit.

That said, if you can put aside the voice, I think the message is a good one. It is Pentecost day – which is Feast Day of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the world. But I chose the OT lesson. Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Which I think is a timely message for the church of today. We spend a good amount of time talking like Israel. We might feel like Israel in exile. And God does not deny the diagnosis. What he does deny is their vision. Because God is not a God of medical therapy or incremental improvement. God works by death and resurrection. A field of dry bones is exactly what God will work with. This sermon expands on that hope. That God will raise us from our graves and give us our own land. He has promised, He will do it.

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Discipleship Itinerary

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Biblical Text: Acts 16:6-15

The text as I read it had two parts. The first being something of a travel itinerary. And it was travel that was done under some uncertainty and stress. First Paul wanted to go West, but the Spirit stopped him. And he drifted north. When he runs out of North he decides to go east, but the Spirit of Jesus stops him. And eventually Paul has a vision, “come help us in Macedonia.” It’s not that Paul was doing anything wrong; he just didn’t have the necessary figured out yet. But when you figure out the necessary, there is only one choice – obedience. The sermon reads Paul’s itinerary as a metaphor for the life of discipleship. The second part of the text is what happens when you arrive at a new point. Paul and his traveling companions have gone to Philippi, a Roman Colony. And what they encounter is different. When we’ve come to something new in our discipleship walk, we have a choice.

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Spirit Led Change: Vision, Experience and the Word

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Biblical Text: Text: Acts 11:1-18, John 16:12-15

Change in the church is always a contentious issue. But even Jesus assumed that it would happen. And the book of Acts gives an example of a significant change. What these biblical texts give us is a Spirit Led pattern. This sermon takes Jesus’ words as the basis and Acts as the enaction of those words. Peter’s “ordered argument” is meaningful. It is not that revelation or vision and experience are meaningless. They are quite meaningful and Peter includes both as part of his argument. But his real argument is “remembering the Word of God.” This sermon looks at Peter’s Spirit led example and encourages us to examine our own changing in the same light.

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Seeing the Vision – Transfiguration Sunday

Biblical Text: Matthew 17:1-9
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The text is the transfiguration which is described as a vision. But it is a vision that ends with a strange warning – “say nothing until the Son of Man is risen from the dead”. The full vision is that God is present both in the glory and the cross. You can’t see it if you are only looking at on. Embedded in the sermon is a homily written by friend and fellow Pastor David Hess currently in hospice. Through his reflections and witness we get invite to “see” the vision.

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