Waxing Theological

11-27-16 (Advent 1A) Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44 Don’t Get Left Behind! The first Sunday of Advent never fails to catch me by surprise, even after years of preaching and years before that of going to church and hearing sermons.  We go through those last few weeks of Ordinary Time in the lectionary and they tend to turn toward the apocalyptic - it’s Jesus telling the disciples what is to come, how the temple will be destroyed, all the things like that.  And then we have Christ the King Sunday, and it reminds us that the next week is Advent.  Here’s where I always get excited, too - we’ve got Thanksgiving, we get to start breaking out the Christmas decorations, we have our “hanging of the greens,” both at church and in a lot of our homes… and we’re ready .  We’re finally ready for the things that we’ve been seeing all around us since Halloween in the stores and in our communities.  We can finally listen to that Christmas music with...

11-20-16 (Christ the King Sunday, Year C) Jeremiah 23:1-6; Luke 23:33-43 Christ our King We have a strange convergence of events happening today in the life of our church here in Vandalia - today is Christ the King Sunday, the Sunday where we put our utmost emphasis on Christ’s divine Lordship over all things, but we also take the time today to gather, both as this community of believers inside of these four walls, but also as a part of the Church Universal - the believers gathered in every time and every place, in order that we might welcome new members into our fellowship: Brennan and Brogan are being welcomed into the body of Christ through their baptism, and Jim and Doris are being welcomed as they transfer their membership to this church.  And to complicate matters just that much more, as you just heard the choir remind us in that beautiful medley of hymns, this Sunday is the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and so many of us are already in that “holiday spirit,” even ...

11-13-16 (Proper 28/Ordinary 31 C, Semi-Continuous) 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19 Don’t Stop Now! This week’s gospel reading invites us into yet another tricky bit of exegesis as we come full swing to the end of the lectionary year and meet head-on with Jesus’ apocalyptic teachings.  These are the passages where Jesus, perhaps himself reading the “signs of the times” and knowing that the end of his earthly ministry is coming closer and closer, shifts modes from moral-ethical teacher and parable-teller to street-corner doomsday preacher with a sandwich board hung over his neck proclaiming “The End is Near.”  They’re passages that, yet again, don’t always make us the most comfortable, and yet they’re still lifted up as important for our study, as important to the development of our faith, and as being worthwhile for hearing God’s good news for our lives. While it’s useful in the study of really any biblical passage, it’s particularly helpful to us in thi...

11/6/16 (Proper 26/Ordinary 31 C Semi-Continuous) Haggai 1:15b-2:9; Luke 20:27-38 Seeing the Bigger Picture It seems we find ourselves facing another challenging and complex set of texts this Sunday - this time of year often begins to feel something like a “greatest hits” album of readings from what some pastors call the “table of contents books” and Jesus’ less popular teachings - you know, the ones some pastors would just as soon skip over as actually preach on.  These last few weeks leading up into Advent put a greater emphasis on looking at Jesus’ teachings on the Kingdom, as well as the words of the prophets to an Israel that has come home from exile and yet is still living under the rule of a foreign power. But as we listen to Jesus engaging in intricate theological conversations with the Sadducees, it’s easy to find ourselves standing on the outside of the conversation and trying to figure out exactly what is going on and what kind of Kingdom it is that Jes...

10-30-16 (Reformation Sunday, Proper 26 C Semi-Continuous) Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4; Luke 19:1-10 Little People, Big Things There’s an aspect of sermon preparation that is both a blessing and a curse, sometimes.  Each week, one of the most sacred, most important things that we’re supposed to do as pastors is to take the texts for the week, to delve into them and live with them for a period of time, to listen to what they have to say - both to us and to you as a congregation - and to determine how best to communicate that word from God to a particular people in a particular place and at a particular time.  We’re given this incredible opportunity to really wrestle with the texts, to dig into the various meanings and interpretations that are out there, to look at the commentaries and hear the thoughts and musings of people who have devoted their entire professional lives to the meticulous study of these gospels in every little detail, so that when they tell us that the G...

10-23-16 (Proper 25/Ordinary 30 Year C Semi-Continuous) Joel 2:23-32; Luke 18:9-14 Two Sinners Walk Into A Temple Two sinners walk into a temple.  It sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s actually the start of the next of Jesus’ parables that Luke introduces in his gospel.  Except - if you listen to the story the way the characters tell it, it only seems like one sinner walks into the temple, even though there are two men introduced. We peek in first at the Pharisee - it’s pretty clear that he’s full of himself, if nothing else.  And yet his resumé is pretty impressive, nevertheless - if we’re being completely honest here, at least at the surface level, he’s the kind of church member we all wish we had at least 50 or 60 of: he tithes 10% of his income to help the temple meet its yearly needs; he fasts twice a week and engages in good spiritual practices.  Bring him into the church today and I’m sure he’d be the first one rushing to the nominatin...

Just a quick note before the sermon itself: I want to apologize that sermons haven't been posted to the blog (nor anything else for that matter) for quite some time now - blogging and journaling have never been a strong suit of mine, and so I'm thankful to folks who are willing to help keep me accountable to this practice!  If you happen to be someone who reads this blog even somewhat regularly when I manage to post, feel free to get in touch with me and let me know if I'm falling behind again. -JM 10-16-16 (Proper 24/Ordinary 29 C, Semi-Continuous) Jeremiah 31:27-34; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8 Persistent in Faith You know, it’s hard to have your birthday in December.  This time of year used to be one of the most frustrating times for me when I was growing up - and I know it sounds silly, especially looking back on it as an adult, but it used to drive me so crazy once we hit about halfway through October and then into November.  We’d be in t...