Now that Saint Paul and Falcon Heights are synonymous with an image of a gun trained on a man who is bleeding out, synonymous with one of the worst police shootings in America, and the incredibly strong woman who filmed it all—now that this is who we are, can we, Read more…
This sermon was preached at Hamline Church, using the text Genesis 2:1-3 (the 7th Day):
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
Palm Sunday doesn’t feel good, to stand outside your building, looking around to see who in your neighborhood is watching you. It doesn’t feel right, to do ‘churchy’ things in a public place–where the ancient rituals we take for granted are visible for anyone to judge. And if we forget how to have that feeling, we forget how to be truly critical of our faith.
And here is Peter, awe struck at his teacher enshrined in light—God, he’s sure that this is it, this is perfection, this is the moment they’ve all been waiting for–and, then, he sees the two men turn, Moses and Elijah, turn away from Jesus–and he cries, “Wait! It is good for us to be here! Let us build three dwellings—let us stay—let us be here, in this moment in this glory–please—don’t leave me.”
Jesus calls us to shock ourselves and wonder–who could I never imagine as my neighbor?
Youth Directors, we need to talk seriously about Christianity & Islam. We need to model respect, honest inquiry, and most importantly, an informed understanding of the basic beliefs of God’s many children. In all this mess, we need to give them a foundation to stand on.
You are their faith leader, and it’s your job to talk to them about faith–especially, now, other faiths.
This past Sunday, I preached on the Annunciation at Hamline Church. The gist of it: Mary the Mother of God, Nadia Boltz-Weber, #blacklivesmatter–and finally, to have faith like Mary is to believe that we already are who God says we are, already enough to wade into the storm in our world.
How many times have you started a conversation by saying “I’m Christian, but I’m not…crazy/fundamentalist/mean/convinced that there is a war on Christmas”? It is always really icky-feeling, isn’t it?
As progressive Christians, we have GOT to get rid of this precursor to all that we are. By speaking like this, we are only reinforcing that normative Christianity IS crazy/fundamentalist/mean/convinced that there is a war on Christmas–that we are the outliers.
So, here are some ways that we can describe who we are that don’t begin with “But I’m not…” (more…)
So I’m confused here–why do the disciples think this is so impossible? Why do they equate being rich with being able to enter the kingdom of God in the first place? Many of the disciples weren’t rich by any means.
I want to caution people against this idea that we should be spending all of our time outside of the church. We still need the kind of community that people would actually want to participate in. We still need to focus on who we are, how we live out the gospel, so that we can be the kind of community that is worth inviting others into.
It’s because you don’t know how.
Last weekend I was at a workshop for church leaders, and it focused on mission and evangelism. The leader of the workshop asked the question:
A sermon delivered at Hamline Church on 9/13. The text was Psalm 19.
The final lines of this psalm are a long standing traditional prayer in both the Jewish and Christian traditions. For centuries—millennia, maybe, preachers have uttered these words to ask God to help them say something true to their faith.
And so I, too, pray: May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you—O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer.
We all need the words of our mouths, and the meditations of our hearts, to point towards a rock and a redeemer. There is a sense of chaos that prowls around my normal, day to day routine. The news of the outside world is disturbing. And it lurks out there, peering into my mundane errands, breaking out, moment to moment.
“My God, who art in the kingdom of Heaven, which is within. I wish you would tell me your name, the real one, I mean. But ‘you’ will do as well as anything. I wish I knew what You were up to. But whatever it is, help me to get Read more…
To ask for forgiveness does two things: it reminds us that ultimately we can still press on, and it reminds us that our failures aren’t going to break God. God won’t break because there’s a typo in your bulletin. God won’t break because your Profoundly-Important-and-Somehow-Totally-Useless Committee is mean, obstinate and unwelcoming. God won’t break because of your church’s hypocrisy. Nothing in this world can break God–not even crucifixion.
First and foremost, to be authentic we must always be a people who point towards resurrection for all people in the love of God. We don’t always have to say it quite like that, but we do need to live it just like that. Everything we do points to that fact: that God’s love transforms our deaths and turns them into new life.
I have never noticed or perceived that people were not interested in God anymore. People are incredibly hungry for God. It isn’t that people don’t want to experience God. It is that The Establishment Church of the 1950s is failing to be a place where that happens.
For this gospel writer, the story didn’t end at the Resurrection, or the Ascension, or even here at Pentecost. The story would continue forever, because the Holy Spirit was at work through every generation.
And, this particular scripture lesson really resonates with me. This is because my faith has been shaped by more than just a love-affair with the Episcopal church, but also, like the disciples here, a paralyzing fear of ghosts.
Last weekend, I designed a lock-in retreat for the 14 7th and 8th graders in my Confirmation group. They are a group of stupendously intelligent young people, each with amazing gifts for thinking, theologizing and creating things. Here are some ideas from that retreat that are worth sharing.