Sermons on Faith (Page 12)
Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life
Photo by Kristina Rogers on unsplash.com 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-18 Alleluia! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia! Happy Easter! and Happy Earth Day! Tomorrow is the 49th celebration of Earth Day and today is approximately the one thousand, nine hundred and ninetieth celebration of the resurrection. It’s unusual for Easter and Earth Day to coincide since Earth Day is always remembered on April 22, but the date of Easter changes depending on the first full moon…
Intimacy with Jesus
Photo by Isaac Taylor on Pexels.com John 12:1-8 This mornings’ gospel reading poses a false dichotomy – should we give money to the poor or give it to God? That’s like saying should I love my neighbor or God and the answer is Yes – both! There is actually no distinction between the two but my relationship with God as God and neighbor as human neighbor are quite different. But this reading raises many other questions which are more perplexing…
The Prodigal Son
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 This morning we come to that wonderful story which many of us learned in Sunday School and which has been so beautifully portrayed by numerous artists including Rembrandt – the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Prodigal is not a word I use very often so I looked it up and found that it means “spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.” In the story, the younger son takes his inheritance in cash, goes away and…
How Does God Respond to our Sinfulness?
Photo by Lukas from Pexels Luke 13:1-9 Our Gospel story for this 3rd Sunday of Lent is a real cliff hanger. How does the story really end? Did the vinedresser have to cut the tree down For not bearing fruit? Did the tree get a year’s reprieve? More time? Another chance? What do you think? For me, today’s gospel story revolves around the question: How does God respond to our sinfulness? We can assume from our reading That somebody and maybe more than…
Shining like the sun
Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a] I don’t know about you, but that reading from 2 Corinthians makes me uneasy. It makes me uneasy because it sounds so anti-Semitic, and humans being humans, I imagine that the idea that Jewish hearts are hardened and their understanding veiled has been used against Jewish people through the centuries. Some commentators think that Paul was simply mistaken in his interpretation of Moses’ veil and as a result disappeared down a…
Turning the Other Cheek
Genesis 45:3-11, 15 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Luke 6:27-38 Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42 Many of you probably remember the day you got your first driver’s license-I know I do. I remember the feeling of being empowered to be independently behind the wheel without the need to have a licensed passenger in the vehicle with me, as was the case when I only possessed what they called in those days-a Learner’s Permit. Little did I know the learning was really just about to…
Blessed are the Poor
Photo by Alvin Decena from Pexels Luke 6:17-26 Just before this morning’s gospel opens, Jesus spent a night praying in the mountains alone, and then calling his disciples to him, specially designating 12 of them as apostles. Afterward, as we heard, “Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear…
Gracious Words
Photo by Ales Krivec @ unsplash.com Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30 Psalm 71:1-6 I’m in the middle of a rather dense book called “Jesus in the Drama of Salvation” by Raymund Schwager. It was written in German, and the English translation is not always clear to me, so I have to keep rereading paragraphs and it’s a slow process. Also it’s a lot to take in. The author is focusing on a question that bothers me and I…
We are the Body of Christ
Photo by Randy Fath @unsplash.com Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a Luke 4:14-21 Psalm 19 I love Sundays like today when each of the readings overflows with possibility. Let’s start with Nehemiah. This is the only Sunday in the whole of the three year cycle when we hear from Nehemiah and we never hear from the closely linked book of Ezra. I was in seminary before I knew anything about these guys. After the exile in Babylon, a small…
Transformation
Photo by Terry Vlisidis on unsplash.com