Waxing Theological

9-23-18 (Proper 20/Ordinary 25 B, Semi-Continuous) James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 Drawing Near to God In seven years of parenting, I’d like to think that my “trouble-sense” is starting to become more finely tuned.  Some situations are easier to anticipate than others, sure… but there are usually some clues that we can rely on to tell us that something’s fishy.  In our house, we tend to start getting nervous when we hear one of two things: repeated laughter or unexpected silence.  I can see the familiarity out there for some folks as you picture that moment - it’s been a busy day, the kids are home from school, homework is done and you’re starting to work on getting dinner ready when you start to hear giggling.  Perhaps you think nothing of it - after all, it’s normal for kids to giggle while they play.  But then there’s a moment of quiet, and then the giggling starts up again.  And that’s when your gut realizes: something’s fishy.  You ...

9-9-18 (Proper 18/Ordinary 23 B, Semi-Continuous) James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37 The Straw Letter Last October, we spent a good portion of the month celebrating the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther and the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.  We explored many of the ideas that fueled Luther’s movement to reform the Catholic church in his time, celebrated our own heritage as Presbyterians, and explored how we as the church are “always reformed, ever reforming according to the word of God.” One of the things that we didn’t explore very much during that Reformation month was the relationship that Martin Luther had with the letter of James.  Of all the books of the Bible, all the letters in the New Testament, all the myriad works that make up the canon of our scriptures… James was the one that Luther disliked most.  Luther didn’t mince words when it came to this epistle - he called it “the epistle of straw,” suggested removing it from study in Wittenberg...

9-2-18 (Proper 17/Ordinary 22 B, Semi-Continous) James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-23 Just Do It How many things are there in our lives that we do just because “it’s the way we’ve always done it?”  or because “that’s how I was taught to do it?”  How many of these things do we even stop for a moment to think about why we do them the way we do?  And how often have we used that same reasoning to explain why any other method of doing something is just simply wrong ? One of the best examples of this is sitting right in front of us right now - just about every time we celebrate communion in this church, the bread is nicely, carefully wrapped up in a linen napkin.  You’ll see this setup in many churches, though it sometimes has some variations - for example, some churches cover the whole table in a white cloth - but the general idea is the same.  Have you ever stopped and asked yourselves why that cloth is there?  Why do we cover the communion bread or ...

8-26-18 (Proper 16/Ordinary 21 B, Semi-Continuous) Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:59-69 Putting On the Armor of God Today is a special day in our church - a day in which we will be officially welcoming Grayson and Reid into our church family as we celebrate their baptisms.  I have to admit - I always get excited over being able to baptize people.  The sacrament of baptism always awes me, whether it’s an infant, a child, or an adult being baptized - it’s a sign of new beginnings, a reminder of God’s love and God’s promises to us.  It’s the opportunity for us as a community of believers to affirm the promises that God has already made to each of us, the grace that we have been given before we could even understand what grace was, as we witness those promises, those blessings of God enacted and represented in the pouring of water. Baptism, for all it represents, is a truly holy, truly sacred moment - and the more I thought about it in preparation for this Sunday...

8-19-18 (Proper 15/Ordinary 20 B, Semi-Continuous) 2 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14; Ephesians 5:15-20 Living Wisely It’s officially the start of a new school year.  We’ve packed our backpacks up, prepped our classrooms, gone to the open-houses, taken those first day of school pictures, welcomed our students and started back into the routines of homework, reading, art projects and math problems.  Some of our students have already been hard at work at sports practices before they even started their classes, and the first games are already underway.  In another week or so, we’ll have gotten back into the swing of things - you’ll have familiarized yourselves with the class schedules, get that morning routine locked in so you don’t miss the bus, and have a pretty solid idea finally of who needs to be where and when.  It’s a time of transition - not just in your schedules and routines, but also in the season itself.  The state fair is coming to an end today and a ...

8-5-18 (Proper 13/Ordinary 18 B Semi-Continuous) 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Ephesians 4:1-16 Humble Pie Living in Missouri these five years, we’ve picked up a few sayings and turns of phrase that aren’t as commonly used on the East Coast.  “Y’all” has slowly but surely come to replace our more familiar Pittsburgh “Yinz.”  “Supper” is more often what we have in the evening now instead of “dinner,” though the rules on those terms are still a bit elusive.  We’ve finally started putting our groceries in “sacks” instead of bags, for the most part, and while we haven’t gotten around to calling it such for ourselves, we’ve finally gotten fully used to other people calling a toilet “the stool.” The passage today from 2nd Samuel, however, brings to mind another phrase entirely - and though it’s used somewhat on the East Coast and people are familiar with it, it has a much more pronounced place in the usages of the Midwest - you see, David got himself served a good old...

7/29/18 (Proper 12/Ordinary 17 B, Semi-Continuous) 2 Samuel 11:1-15; John 6:1-21 The Scandalous God If I’m to be honest, the Samuel text for this morning made me uncomfortable.  I wrestled with it in a lot of ways.  One of the things I appreciated about our classes in seminary was that they taught us to look for the connections between the lectionary texts, for ways to tie them together and find a common thread… but what can you really find in common with such different texts as the story of David and Bathsheba and the Feeding of the 5,000 or Jesus walking on the water?  What is there in what are, perhaps, David’s most heinous and reprehensible actions, that would even remotely be worth exploring and lifting up in a sermon at all?  There is nothing good in this account of the King of Israel, his most loyal soldier, and this woman caught in an impossible situation. Wrestling with these texts was made only more difficult, of course, by all the recen...