Waxing Theological

5-25-14 (Easter 6A) Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21                                                                      Believing Is Seeing     As we continue to explore the growth and beginnings of the church, we take this week to join the apostle Paul on his missionary journeys as he enters into the city of Athens.  Paul has been going from city to city, meeting with Jews and Gentiles alike and proclaiming the gospel.  In his journeys, Paul has nearly been killed by crowds who have tried to stone him.  He has been thrown in prison.  But he continues along, going from one city and town to another and proclaiming the gospel in the synagogues and performing wonders among the people.  People have started to hear him and to believe in Jesus Christ.  But when Paul comes into Athens, he’s astounded.  In the other towns and cities Paul visited, there would be shrines here and there to various gods, certainly.  But Athens at the time was quite literally a city full of gods, their shrines and id

5-18-14 (Easter 5A) Acts 7:55-60; John 14:1-14                                                                          Heart Troubles     Do not let your heart be troubled, the savior says.  Do not let your heart be troubled.  But how could their hearts not have been troubled?  How could they not be worried, confused, and scared as their leader, their teacher, and their friend is sitting with them, telling them that this meal he shares with them will be their last together and that he is about to be betrayed by one of them, then denied by the greatest of them?  It would be enough to worry anyone - and yet Jesus’ first words to his disciples after he tells Peter that he will deny him and that he cannot follow him are “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”     He tells them that they cannot follow him because he is going ahead of them to prepare a place for them.  He tells them that he will return and take them to himself, so that they may be with him.  But then he throws them another c

5-11-14 (Easter 4A) Acts 2:42-47; John 10:1-10                                                                   Living Abundantly     Today in the Gospel we do something a little strange - we’ve been exploring the day of resurrection itself for several weeks, looking at the disciples’ encounters with the risen Christ.  But this chapter in John comes much earlier - we’re jumping backwards in the story to hear more of Jesus’ teachings for a moment.  Suddenly, instead of the amazed face of the disciples bursting into the locked room and declaring “He is risen,” we’re back near the pool of Siloam, looking at the amazed and puzzled face of the man who was born blind, but who is now miraculously able to see for first time in his life.  The spiritually blind pharisees are still dubious of the whole scene, but Jesus takes the moment to impart some further wisdom.     So Jesus launches into his teaching, using yet again this familiar imagery of sheep and shepherds that we have heard him use b

One of the things we do at the church is to put together a monthly newsletter in addition to the weekly email updates we send out.  I write a little note "From the Pastor's Desk" thinking about the month, the season, or what have you that gets included in that newsletter.  As I wrote this particular month's note, I realized that it was turning into something a bit more reflective, so I wanted to continue that thought here on the blog.  To those for whom those two worlds intersect, you'll see a lot repeating itself from the newsletter - I promise, I'm not being (entirely) lazy and just copy-pasting from one to another, but I think I could have written an entire newsletter myself if I hadn't cut it short.     When we moved into the manse in August, as we realized that this little corner of South Lindell street was where we’d be calling home, one of the first things we noticed was a number of small metal signs stuck into the beds of mulch that surrounded t

5/4/14 (Easter 3A) Acts 2:14, 36-41; Luke 24:13-35                                                                              Seeing Jesus     As we move into this third week of Easter, I’m realizing something that I’d never thought of before - and I’m still amazed as I continue to think about it even now: this one, spectacular day of resurrection - this earth-shattering, mind-blowing, reality-transforming event - is the only event in the entire lectionary that gets so many Sundays devoted to its exploration.  We have the season of Advent during Christmas, and it takes several weeks to come to Christ’s birth, yet the Christmas event itself is one evening - and perhaps one Sunday morning, when Christmas Day happens on a Sunday.  The various miracles Jesus performed, the parables he told, the things he said and did - we spend one Sunday at a time talking about those.  His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his last meal with his disciples, his betrayal and trial before Pilate, even h