Waxing Theological

6-10-18 (Proper 5/Ordinary 10 B, Semi-Continuous) 1 Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14-15; Mark 3:20-35 A House Divided On the evening of June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln stood in front of the Illinois Hall of Representatives and delivered a speech that would ultimately end up costing him a Senate seat to Stephen A. Douglas.  In that speech, he quotes from the passage of scripture that we have heard today - “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  His speech focused on a country that was divided - a country that found itself half slave and half free - and expressed his conviction that it would not be possible for the Union to continue if the country itself continued to be divided.  He shared that he did not believe the union would dissolve, but that a decision would be made that would eventually unite the nation, one way or another, though his goal and his hope was that the nation would ultimately decide for freedom. “A house divided against itself cannot stand” -...

6-3-18 (Proper 4/Ordinary 9B, Semi-Continuous) 2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6 In Clay Jars This may come as no surprise to anyone in the congregation, but when I was in college, I hung out with a lot of people who were into pretty nerdy things - we regularly got into heavy discussion over various aspects of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and superheroes, and a significant number of us were into various tabletop games, from collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering, to the quintessential favorite “Dungeons and Dragons.”  Among this group of friends, there were two young men in particular who I’m pretty sure knew just about as much as it was possible to know about the Dungeons and Dragons game - they had spent so much time reading the various rulebooks and source materials that, had our college offered a class in Roleplaying Games, they could probably have taught it. The thing about Dungeons and Dragons, however, is that it’s not a game that’s meant to be ...

5/27/18 (Trinity Sunday Year B) Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17 Find Your Calcutta “Here Am I, Send Me.”  These are the words we hear Isaiah proclaim so strongly before the throne of God as he responds to God’s question, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  It’s a story whose theme is reflected so strongly and beautifully in the hymn, “Here I Am, Lord,” which is one of many reasons we enjoy singing it so much in our tradition for ordination services, commissioning services, and other important moments in our Christian lives.  That idea of selfless devotion to service, of willingness to be sent out, no matter what the journey may require of you, to be able to boldly and truthfully say “Here I am, Lord, send me …” it’s an admirable trait, and one we often strive to cultivate in ourselves.  And we lift up so many of those in our faith and history who have done just that - from so many figures in the Bible, including Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Dani...

5-20-18 (Pentecost Year B) Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2:1-21 Dry Bones, Dry Church When you think of Pentecost, what are the things that come to mind?  The word alone can bring up a lot of different ideas, depending on your experience in the church.  For a lot of us, Pentecost is that day where we make sure we wear our red clothes and there are usually balloons and things in the sanctuary.  Cast your mind back far enough and there’s probably some memory of a Sunday School class or two where you talked about Pentecost being the birthday of the church.  We may be more familiar with the term because it’s the basis for the “Pentecostal” traditions that are out there - and so perhaps we come to this day scratching our heads and wondering why we have a Sunday every year for those folks who break out into weird language in worship, meanwhile giving thanks that we don’t have to worry about that kind of interruption and uncomfortable experience in our building. ...

5-13-18 (Easter 7B) 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19 A Powerful Testimony As we’ve focused these last few weeks on these various writings from John in both this letter and his gospel, we’ve been in pretty comfortable and even familiar territory.  Jesus’ encouragement to bear good fruits, to love one another as we have been loved… these are all things that we can easily follow and give our own affirmation toward - we get these ideas, and we’ve heard them preached time and time again.  Today, though… we start to move out of that comfortable territory and into words, phrases, and ideas that aren’t as familiar.  That word testimony that John uses so frequently in the first reading isn’t a very big part of our Presbyterian vocabulary - in fact, if I were to step aside and ask for volunteers right now to come up and give their own testimony… how many of you would raise your hands right now and volunteer to share? Is it a scary thought to share your story?  Do...

5-6-18 (Easter 6B) 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17 Love is All You Need It was a bit of a struggle this week to center in on what to write for this sermon.  This is the third week in a row in which the texts have had so much of the same things to say as John continues to exercise his rhetorical prowess and talk in this complex, repetitive, almost circular style.  We hear John reiterating this central theme again and again and again - if he had written this letter on a laptop, it would be completely in caps lock and in 24 point font by this point.  Abide, abide, abide.  Love, Love, Love. It brought to mind the Beatles for me for a moment - Love, love, love…. love, love, love… Jesus’ central commandment, the one, singular, defining theme of his ministry and work as laid out by John, is the love of God.  Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Jesus giving two commandments: love God, love your neighbor, for John, it seems that love truly is all that yo...

4-29-18 (Easter 5B) 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8 Abiding in Love Can you remember the moment that you really began to understand what it meant to say that you believed in Christ?  Perhaps it’s an odd question, and each of our answers may vary greatly depending on our lives and experiences.  I know that there are a lot of us here today, myself included, who are “cradle Christians” of some flavor or another - from the day we were born, there was no question about it: we went with our families to church on Sundays, went to Sunday School and learned the Bible stories, maybe earned a few pins for memorizing Bible verses and such, and sang the songs that still get our toes tapping when we sing them now at KidzConnect or when the children play them on the chimes… it’s simply been an integral part of our DNA and we’ve never known anything else. Others might not share that same experience - perhaps your family didn’t take you to church and you’d never even heard any hymn...