Sermons

I am certain that contemporaries of Jesus during his time on earth would consider modern medicine nothing short of miraculous.
Folks in those days got sick and died from conditions we can easily cure with a course of antibiotics. We can take a person with cancer and, through surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, bring them back to health. Without modern orthopedics, a great many of us would be living in constant pain that might eventually leave us unable to walk.

Once upon a time, I led a group studying the book of Job. It turned out that, the more we dug into the book, the less we enjoyed it. It’s not like the Psalms, where you study one, finish it, and turn to another one. Job is essentially a long argument between the main character and three of his friends, with appearances later from a fourth friend and, at the very end, from God.

The people who study such things tell us that most people they’ve asked have said they want sermons that offer concrete ways we can apply a particular message to our lives. So, in the interest of giving the people what they want, I offer this:

I was part of an e-mail listserv years ago with a bunch of pastors all over the world. The group on the listserv discussed the weekly lectionary texts, under the direction of a pastor from the United Church of Canada.

If you have a mouse in a maze with a reward at the end, and you make it so the mouse receives a shock or some other undesirable stimulus whenever they reach for that reward, the mouse will stop reaching for it. And if, later, the shock is removed, the mouse still won’t reach for the reward.

In this text, we’re back in Cana.
Most scholars see the first twelve books of the Fourth Gospel as the “Book of Signs,” in which Jesus does things that cause others to know who he is and believe in him. And within that “Book of Signs,” according to some scholars, there is a discrete section from the beginning of chapter 2 through the end of chapter 4, bookended by the first and second of the seven signs taking place at Cana.

My folks used to watch those People’s Court-style judge shows every afternoon. You know what I’m talking about; I think Judge Wapner on The People’s Court was the first one, but he certainly wasn’t the last. A lot of the cases that are dealt with on those shows are pretty minor in the scheme of things, but they’ve managed to break friendships, sometimes even sparked family feuds, when someone has damaged property or taken something that another person thinks belongs to them, or whatever.

The weather outside sure doesn’t look like it, but spring is coming.
For a lot of us, with spring comes spring cleaning. All winter long we do everything we can to keep the house as fresh and clean as possible when it’s closed up and everybody’s cooped up inside, and if we go outside when the weather’s bad we track in mud, snow, road salt, and you name it when we come back inside.

If you were going to do something that demonstrates how spectacular you are, how talented, maybe even how tuned in you are to God, where would you do it? Wouldn’t you want to do it in front of lots of people, maybe at a special event? You wouldn’t do it in a back room where literally nobody knows about it other than some servants and a few of your friends, would you?

Quite by accident, Dr. Lily Penleric made an incredible discovery.
Having been turned down for tenure at the college where she was an associate professor of music, specializing in the folk ballads of the British Isles, Lily went to spend some time with her sister Elna, who was a teacher at a settlement school in the hills of Appalachia.

One of the things I like best about the Narrative Lectionary, although I do have some criticisms, is that it’s on a four-year cycle instead of a three-year cycle like the Revised Common Lectionary and the ones specific to particular traditions, like the Catholic and Lutheran churches.

Whenever there’s a discussion about moral issues in church, somebody inevitably says, “Well, the Bible says we’re to hate the sin, but love the sinner.” But does it? And can it even be done?
If you Google the phrase, you will find a variety of opinions on the subject. People will bring up Bible passages that they interpret as saying that we are indeed called to hate the sin, but love the sinner. But others look at those same passages and insist they say no such thing. So what are we to believe?