Sermons

Have you seen those yard signs that begin with “In this house, we believe…”? Most of them are followed by a list of fairly liberal talking points, although there are versions that are much more conservative. I’ve seen quite a few of them when I have ventured over into the suburbs on the Kansas side of the KC metro area.

Seems like fairly regularly we hear about somebody, somewhere, trying to get a law passed requiring school classrooms, courthouses, and other public places to post the Ten Commandments. And whenever that happens, some commentator or comedian decides to have a little fun with the instigator of the law. “You want the Ten Commandments posted; can you name them?” And almost inevitably, they can’t. As a general rule, they’re able to name three easily—don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t steal—and then maybe one or two others, honor father and mother, perhaps, or don’t covet; but very few actually manage to list all ten.

Most of you know, I think, that I’m a pretty big Star Trek fan. Not to the point of putting on a costume and going to a convention (although I did dress up as Mr. Spock for Halloween when I was in fourth grade), but I generally watch the older series, at least, in syndication whenever I can. There’s a channel on my TV service that plays the five classic series every night, beginning with the original series (the one with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy) at 7:00, and continuing with The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and finally Enterprise at 11.

As it generally happens in the Narrative Lectionary, we’ve skipped quite a bit between last week’s reading and today’s.
Last week we met Abram, later to be called Abraham, and his wife Sarai, who became Sarah. They were living on a dead end street, elderly, no children, just a nephew they had taken into their home after his parents died. And God promised to make from them a great nation, even though they were both old enough to be on Medicare.

Maybe the call came in the middle of the night. “Abram, Abram…wake up!”
He opened his eyes, listened intently, trying to figure out who that unfamiliar voice belonged to. But he didn’t see anyone. Must have just been a dream, he thought, as he rolled over and began to doze off again.

I told you last week about Mike’s fascination with YouTube videos about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Lest you think I’m immune to such things, I also have topics I will watch endless videos about.

Today we finally reach the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the first of five major blocks of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel of Matthew. And where we end is at the beginning of the life of faith.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I find buzzwords—terms that get overused to the point of meaninglessness—to be pretty irritating. Today’s text brought up another one, one which actually defines a lot of what Jesus teaches throughout the Sermon on the Mount: Authenticity.

Every now and then when I was in college and living in the dorms, we would go into the lounge and find someone had tuned the television in there to the Christian channel. (There was only one on our system then.)

I’m sort of allergic to buzzwords. You know what I mean: words or phrases that become sort of trendy, and they get thrown around to the point that they lose all their meaning. Things like “throw them under the bus.” Or “in harm’s way,” which I know started out as sort of a cute way to describe someone being in a dangerous situation; but it’s just gotten out of hand now.

It became popular about thirty years ago, and still is in some circles, to wear bracelets and other doodads with the initials “W.W.J.D.” on them. The letters, as I’m sure you know, stand for “What would Jesus do?” We are encouraged to consider how Jesus might act in any situation, as we decide how we should act.

Fred Craddock once visited a church’s prayer group.  While he was there, he saw the group’s little book where they kept record of the things they had prayed for.  If a request was granted, they would make a note of the date on which it happened.

Fred looked at the things the group had asked for, and was sort of flabbergasted:  luxury cars, furs, dates, that sort of thing.  And he wondered, “Is that what prayer is for?”