Waxing Theological

The texts for this week's sermon are Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13. Dishonest Wealth There’s a dirty word that flies around during the month of April with regularity - of course, I’m talking about taxes.  Every January, we get those wonderful forms that remind us how much we made this year, then we go about the grueling process of figuring out just how much of a cut of that money we need to give to Uncle Sam.  So we call up our accountants, we log onto the tax preparation websites, we pull out the calculators, the big ziplock bag of receipts we’ve saved all year, the letters from the churches and charities telling us what our donations have been this year, everything we can to help figure out what we need to pay, and we crunch those numbers down to the last penny.  We make that extra pot of coffee, pull out the antacids, and we don’t quit until it’s done and we know whether we’re getting something back , or whether we just have to pay...

I'm sitting on my front porch for really the first time since we moved into this beautiful manse in this little town of Vandalia.  I'm in a folding camp chair, but I'm wishing it was a porch swing like the one my grandparents had in Liberty, Indiana.  I've been sitting out here on this porch off and on throughout the night, actually, my clay Presbyterian mug full of the Punjana tea that reminds me so strongly of Corrymeela and of Ireland.  And the only reason I'm sitting out here is because the rain is comming down in torrents and the thunder is rolling in steady waves, like a celestial ocean wave crashing against the clouds time and time again.  The rain is gently misting against my face as a cool breeze blows in from the rapid descent of the barometer; it leaves iridescent pinpricks of magnified light on my screen as I sit and type.  Lightning flashes and I see the clouds light up on the horizon, the trees coming alive in bluish-green hues from its eerie stati...

And now for something completely different... I got that wonderful notification last night that "A new iOS update is available," so I decided to go ahead and do the right thing: upgrade.  When that nice little Apple logo popped up on my phone and the install bar finally passed 100%, imagine my surprise, as - bad geek that I am who didn't follow every new development on the new OS - what looked like a completely different phone  popped up with a welcome and lock screen. For those playing the home game, a friend of mine posted an Ars Technica rundown on the new GUI for the iOS.  You can find it  here  and a more in-depth review  here .  It covers pretty much all you could want to know about what's changed and what's new.  And if I'd looked at either of those yesterday before  that little notification popped up on my phone, I'd probably have been more prepared. But, seeing as I did not ... let me just say this: wow. Why don't I j...

The texts for this sermon are 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and Luke 15:1-10. One Lost Sheep Our scriptures often use images of sheep and shepherds when talking about the relationship between God and God’s people.  It’s one of the most commonly used images when talking about Christianity, especially in terms of comfort and knowing the way in which God cares for us.  I’d guess that nearly all of us have heard, or even have memorized , the 23rd Psalm to the point that the moment we hear “The Lord is My Shepherd,” our ears perk up.  We know the images of the gentle shepherd who leads his flock beside still waters, who takes them to green fields where they can eat their fill, who protects them against the wolf and the lion.  We hear Jesus call himself the “Good Shepherd” in the Gospel of John, and say that he lays his life down for his sheep, that he knows his flock by name and cares for each one individually.  As the resurrected Christ encounters Peter on the shore of...

As a new Presbyterian pastor, I have the great pleasure of getting to attend Presbytery meetings.  Now, for folks out there who are playing the "home version," Presbytery is a big meeting of pastors and elders from the various Presbyterian churches in a particular area where they get together and someone says "all in favor, say aye" a bunch of times and occasionally people get very particular about some fellow named Robert and all the rules he made up for when people have meetings.  People spend the better part of a day saying "aye" and making motions and resolutions, then decide that they've said "aye" enough times for the day, and then get back in their cars and go home for a month so they can get ready to come back next month. Ok... so there's obviously more to a Presbytery meeting than that.  They work very hard to be both a resource and a guide to church sessions and pastors, and make some tough decisions.  For example, our Presb...

Before I go into my musings, since this is a first post and all, I just wanted to give a quick "welcome" to anybody who happens to stumble upon this blog, whether through the church, through my own sharing on my profile, or however you've found this.  I've tried a few different blogs through the years, but none of them have ever "stuck," so to speak.  I'll try to post here as inspiration hits and put some thoughts out there every now and then, and there's no guarantees what any post might be about.  One thing I'm thinking of doing is putting my sermon each Sunday up here (after it's been preached, of course).  Sometimes, it'll be something out of scripture that catches my muse, other times it'll be a quick story, or sometimes there might be something specifically dealing with current events and things in the news and media.  Sometimes, it might even be something like a recipe or a book review.  Or I might post a video or two here and ...