Sermons

One of the most interesting parts of the story of the Bible is how and why the church decided what books would be included in the New Testament.
The word for the list of books contained in the Bible is “canon,” a word that originally meant “a measuring stick.” In order for a book to be part of the New Testament canon, three questions had to be answered with a “yes.”

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
if I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Children of an earlier era learned to say this prayer at bedtime. In those days, before vaccinations and antibiotics and so many other modern advances, death was a much closer reality than it sometimes is for us—especially for our children, whom we understandably want to shield from such things whenever we can. So perhaps the prayer was comforting in that earlier time. Nowadays, people find it terrifying.

When David grew old, there was quite a controversy about who would succeed him on the throne in Jerusalem. His oldest living son, Adonijah, assumed he would be king, and he began to act accordingly. But it had already been decided, and endorsed by God, that Solomon, Bathsheba’s second son with David (remember that the first one died as an infant), would be the next king. So there was some wrangling behind the scenes by the prophet Nathan and the priest Zadok, and some symbolic action featuring Solomon riding his father’s mule, after which Adonijah stepped aside and asked for Solomon’s mercy.

Did you ever notice that there are some people in your life who you like better and better the more you get to know them? And the converse is true, too: there are people we dislike more and more the longer we know them.
King David is like that for me.

When my sister and I were teenagers, we had friends who would sometimes come to our windows at night. It happened to her more than it did to me. A couple of Carrie’s friends worked at Wendy’s, where some of the food that was prepared and not sold had to be thrown out at closing time. They would sometimes bring some of the leftovers to her at 11:00 or midnight. Now and then she’d get a Frosty, if they were cleaning out the machine that night.

I have no idea what it’s like to be truly hungry.
There was only one time in my whole life that I even came close: one summer when Mike and I both found ourselves unemployed at the same time. He qualified for unemployment, but I didn’t, and while we were waiting for his first unemployment check, we paid all the bills that we could pay—left a couple of them that we thought it’d be safe to let slide—and had $28 left in the bank, with no idea how long it would be till we had any more. All there was to eat in our house was a package of freezer-burned chicken soup. We thinned that out and choked it down—it tasted terrible—for a couple meals, then it was gone.

We have skipped quite a lot between last week’s story—Jacob’s dream in which he sees angels ascending and descending a ladder from earth to heaven—and where we pick up today. Jacob, in the course of time after he has that dream, marries two wives—sisters Rachel and Leah—as well as two secondary wives, and has twelve sons and a daughter. The older sons become murderously jealous of the next-to-youngest, Joseph, and he ends up in Egypt. Through a series of twists and turns, Joseph ends up second in command to the king of Egypt, and saves many people from a long famine, including his own father and brothers and their families. His family end up settled in Egypt; and they do pretty well there, even after Joseph’s death.

You probably know the old song by Creedence Clearwater Revival in which a musician finds himself stranded in a place he didn’t intend to stay:  “Oh Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again.”

Now I suppose if you’re from Lodi, you might not think it’s such a bad place; but it wasn’t where this fellow wanted to be.  He wanted to be back home, and Lodi wasn’t home.

You know, if Abraham were living today, and he claimed God told him to do something like this, we’d be calling Social Services on him and getting him hospitalized for a mental health evaluation. This just isn’t right.

In the beginning, when God created the world, things were chaotic. There was only wind, and water, and darkness. There was nothing that had any form, nothing you could identify as a place or a thing, or a person. Things were without any sense, or rhythm.

It’s interesting to me how much pop culture from my formative years—music, movies, television shows, even books —haven’t worn too well over time.
When I was in the hospital after my first knee replacement, I was awake during the night and had the TV on. Scrolling through the available channels, I happened onto a movie I had enjoyed when I was a teen, Sixteen Candles. A patient care specialist (what I think is called a CNA in other facilities, although I sort of like the other name better) came in, and we were talking a little about the film, and while she said she liked it, I realized that there’s some stuff in there 1983 me thought was hilarious, but that 2021 me found highly appalling.

When I was in the high school band, our director had a sign above his office door. It was a list of rules—a very short list, as it turned out.
Rule number 1: The director is always right.
Rule number 2: If the director is wrong, see rule 1.