Waxing Theological

4-22-18 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18 The Shepherd’s Love I learned some truly interesting things about sheep this week in my sermon preparations - and while it definitely shaped a little of how I understood the texts today, it also changed a lot of how I’ve understood the way that Scripture uses the imagery of sheep as a whole.  When you think about sheep - what are the images that come to mind for you?  Maybe the first one is the soft, cuddly lamb with the snow white wool - you know… the one that followed Mary to school and caused so much trouble.  Not a bad image, right?  But then there’s the other view of sheep - possibly the one we’ve been hearing tossed around a bit more recently in current climates and atmospheres of discussion: you know this one, too… that image of sheep being dumb creatures who blindly follow, who fearfully clump together and refuse to budge the more afraid they become… Sheep are truly interesting creatures - and while they ...

4-15-18 (Easter 3B) 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48 See What Love the Father Has Given Us We shift gospels this week as we continue to dwell in the resurrection - we’ve heard the testimony of Mary as she encounters the risen Christ at the tomb, as she bursts in on the fearful disciples and proclaims “I have seen the risen Lord!”  We’ve heard John’s account of the disciples’ own experiences of the resurrected Messiah, of Thomas’ need to see it for himself and experience the same thing that the other disciples have already experienced.  Today, we turn to Luke and continue to explore this one, singular day of wonders. Luke’s narrative is similar enough to John’s in key ways - several of the women who were Jesus’ disciples come to the tomb with fragrant spices prepared for the man they’d loved and followed faithfully, but they find the stone rolled away.  Hearing the message of the angels that “He is not here, he is risen!” they run joyfully to report the good ...

4-8-18 (Easter 2B) Acts 4:32-35; John 20:19-31 What a Difference! This Sunday, we enter into a seven week stretch that takes us from Easter to Pentecost - much like the weeks immediately after Christmas, we don’t often think about Easter being a season in the church: the marshmallow Peeps, Jelly Beans, and chocolate bunnies get marked down to 50% off, we get to start having whatever we gave up for Lent again, and time marches on. But there’s something truly interesting about this whole Easter season that really captivates my thoughts this time around as I look ahead at the lectionary readings between now and Pentecost - we get this really short span here where the readings move us into the book of Acts instead of choosing readings from the Old Testament.  And so we get this mixture of Gospel readings, both post- and pre-resurrection, paired with highlights of the apostles’ ministries in the earliest days of the church.  Today, in particular, we get this very o...

In an effort to catch up a bit and get back into the practice, I'm going to be posting the sermons I've written since Easter Sunday. This service was a blast  to do - we recorded the whole thing and I've put it up on my YouTube channel.  The manuscript for the sermon follows below the video: 4-1-18 (Easter Sunday, Year B) John 20:1-18; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 Send in the Clowns Easter and April Fool’s - on the same day.  It’s a rare occasion - so rare, in fact, that the last time these two dates coincided was in 1956, and it won’t happen again until 2029, then one last time for this entire century in 2040.  With such a rare opportunity in front of us this year, I realized that we had to do something - this combination of days is simply too good , too fitting , even, to just let pass as another Easter Sunday.  And so, while Easter Sunday is always a day to focus on joy, on celebration and praise… this Sunday, in particular, I also wanted to ...

As I spend time on vacation in Pennsylvania visiting with family and just generally letting life catch up with me for a bit, it dawned on me that I have seriously  neglected this blog.  To those who have/had been following sermons and other musings that I had been posting on here, I offer my apologies - it turns out that there was a sermon I had been in the process of posting and it never made it past a draft stage. Life has a tendency of happening, and things sometimes slip through the cracks - I wouldn't trade much of it for a few extra blog posts having shown up on here, but I aim to get back into the practice. Thanks for still being around, folks.

6-25-17 (Proper 7/Ordinary 12A, Semi-Continuous) Genesis 21:8-21; Matthew 10:24-39 Family Matters   Take a second and try to think really hard with me - when is the last time you watched a television show that featured a functional family?  Personally, I had a hard time coming up with examples that really stood out.  The days seem to be long gone when we’d tune in to find out what kind of trouble The Beaver would get himself and Wally into, or when we’d sit with Jan and commiserate over the fear of how her classmates would think of her now that she has to wear glasses.  Since the dawning in popularity of shows like “All in the Family,” we’re far more likely to see families on TV demonstrating dysfunction than anything else. The Simpsons is coming up on its 29th year and looks to be going strong into its 30th, and one of its longest running “gags” (pun slightly intended) is that Homer is frequently trying to strangle Bart:   The strange...

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 ...