Waxing Theological

6-18-17 (Ordinary 11/Proper 6 A, Semi-Continuous) Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7; Matthew 9:35-10:23 Welcome the Stranger Our kids have a problem with strangers - namely, that they don’t believe in strangers.  To be honest, it’s something that Janis and I have wrestled with, especially as they are starting to get older and doing more things independently.  They rarely hesitate to go up to whoever they see and start talking to them, asking for hugs or to be picked up.  And I’ll be honest, we’ve been incredibly fortunate so far - even if people haven’t been entirely comfortable with the unknown child climbing up into their lap to see better at the football game, we live in a community where people understand that it really does take a village to raise a child, and so they tend to roll with it. It’s a peculiar situation that we don’t really know how to handle as parents - on the one hand, we love that they’re not shy.  It’s great that they are willing ...

FPC Vandalia 6-11-17 (Trinity A) Joshua 4:1-9; Matthew 28:16-20 Our Campfire Religion At Presbytery this last Tuesday, we celebrated 20 years of camping ministry at Covenant Point - a part of that celebration involved us having the very first camp director come back to share some of his experiences and of what camp meant to him.  Something he said has stuck with me through the whole rest of the week - so much so that I had to change the texts I was working with a little.  He told the people gathered at worship that morning that Christianity is a campfire religion, a religion of the outdoors - and it dawned on me that while in many ways, this was stating the obvious, it was also a wonderful reminder to be given. We don’t always think about it in this context, but I invite you to picture it: the sun is setting and you’ve gathered with the rest of your tribe to make camp for the evening.  As your father fastens the last of the lines and ensures that th...

5-14-17 (Easter 5A) Acts 7:55-60; John 14:1-14 Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled I encountered a peculiar quandary this week as I started looking at the texts and preparing for worship.  It’s not often that the lectionary year and the calendar year end up being so weirdly at odds with each other - there’s a certain irony to be found in the fact that the lectionary readings for Mother’s Day are the stoning of Stephen and Jesus’ farewell discourse in which he says “there are many rooms in my Father’s house.”  And really - what do you do in that weird contrast?  What direction do you take this Sunday?  Did I want to change out the readings and find ones more thematically appropriate?  Or do you just focus on the readings themselves and let the whole Mother’s Day event take a place on the back burner? Interestingly enough, a connection became more apparent as I started to read more into the history and origins of Mother’s Day itself.  It’s not...

FPC Vandalia 5-7-17 (Easter 4A) Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; John 10:1-10 I Shall Not Want The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want. I shall not want. It’s such a small phrase, and yet it has so much packed into it.  I shall not want.  The psalmist goes on to describe that state of being cared-for by the divine shepherd: green pastures, still waters, protection from danger, defended from enemies.  The Lord is my shepherd, and under his care, I will want for nothing . Is it any wonder that we’ve found so much comfort in this Psalm for so many centuries?  That the image of Christ as Shepherd has held so strongly in our religious imagery and artwork, even as the role of the shepherd itself has diminished in an age of advancing technology and agriculture?  We take a certain pride in the notion: we are his sheep, he knows us each by name.  And when he calls us, we follow - when we wander and go astray, he seeks us out.  When w...

4-30-17 (Easter 3A) Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Luke 24:13-35 On the Road Again Two disciples are walking down a long and winding road.  It was a kind of journey they’d taken so many times over the last few years as they’d followed Jesus from village to village, town to town, listening to him proclaiming the news that the Kingdom of God was near.  He’d been surrounded by crowds on so many of those journeys, disciples, followers, and other hangers-on all around him… all of them clamoring for the savior’s attention, for just a touch of his hand and a glimpse of his amazing power. And yet this time, it was so much more different, so much more quiet.  It’s just these two disciples this time, Cleopas and his companion - they walk a lot more slowly than they did as they followed the Teacher, the urgency and energy gone from their steps.  Their heads are held low, their shoulders drooping as if they carry a great weight on them.  They talk about the events that...

4-2-17 (Lent 5A) Psalm 130; John 11:1-45 When the Savior Weeps Jesus wept.  It’s such a short verse of scripture, such a tiny little piece of this huge, sweeping story of death and resurrection.  And yet, somehow it still captivates us nonetheless.  People have had the verse tattooed onto their bodies because of its powerful significance to them, and yet there are so many things, even in this same chapter, that say more about Jesus to us.  What is it about this singular verse that enthralls us and keeps drawing us back to those two simple words, time and time again? On the one hand, it’s a simple enough explanation: the verse reminds us in the most succinct manner possible that Jesus was, in fact, human .  While the theology and the metaphysics of the incarnation will always remain something of a mystery to us despite our best attempts at trying to come to terms with the claims of scripture, we remember that the Bible and tradition both hold fir...

3-26-17 (Lent 4A) 1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-41 Blind, But Now I See One of the most painful experiences I have ever had was the day we learned that a part of Caleb’s brain hadn’t developed the way it was supposed to.  Officially, it’s called Dandy-Walker Malformation - that was the name that the doctor told us in the ultrasound room before offering his condolences and ushering us into another room to meet with a genetics counselor.  At the time, however, it was a mixture of having the rug pulled out from under us and having a bucket of ice-water dumped over our heads.  We didn’t know really anything about what it would mean for us or for our son, but what we did know was that suddenly everything in our world had changed - every image we’d painted for ourselves of our child was suddenly shattered and was going to be replaced with something different. As we drove home that day, the question on our minds was an awful lot like the question on the lips of t...