A cup of coffee served with dynamite

 

Pentecost 2023 (May 28)

What do coffee and dynamite have to do with each other?  

Funny you should ask.  Pastor Rob preaches a sermon on confirmation Sunday about the limits of parents and the unlimited power of prayer.  The image Pastor Rob offers of God inviting us to prayer is a grandmother with a cup of coffee in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other.

(What is confirmation?  When a child is baptized, their parents, along with godparents and the congregation, make promises to raise the child in faith.   As a child grows within a home and community of faith, their faith becomes more deeply connected to the faith of others.  They start understanding more personally, learning how to live faith in daily life.  Confirmation is a rite, typically following a period of instruction in the basics of the faith, in which youth or adults publicly confess their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, affirming the promises God made them in Baptism.  It is not an end point in the journey of faith, but it is a key point in embracing the life of a disciple.  Confirmation invites the whole congregation to affirm the faith of the confirmands.)

Wounds that Become Scars: The power of forgiveness

Ascension Sunday (May 21, 2023)

In Marvel movies, bad guys keep coming back, even after you were entirely sure they were killed.  In this way, art mirrors life, in that the sins, evil and brokenness of the past continue to haunt us in the next chapter of life.

The Ascension story (Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53) is a pivot story, in that we end on “episode” and begin the next one — moving from the ministry of Jesus to the ministry of the early apostles.  All too quickly though it seems like the old sins are going to come back to write the next chapter.  But nope!  God’s love is too powerful.

Pastor Rob offers that the good news of Jesus Christ is that his death and resurrection, which brings about the forgiveness of sins, means that even though sin and evil linger, God’s love has the upper hand and ultimately writes the story of our salvation.  The crucified and risen Lord does this as he heals wounds, transforming them into scars.  They bear witness to the  past hurt, but also the strength of God to redeem and transform our lives.

The picture is the ascending Christ from St. Paul’s stained glass windows.  Note the raised hands — the hands that will always bear the marks of crucifixion.

What makes a good inheritance?

 Easter 6 2023 (May 14)

What is a good inheritance?  Pastor Rob offers that a good inheritance is the gifts the dead leave behind for the living to go on living.  This can be money, heirlooms, photos, recipes, hymns, stories and even values.

Pastor Rob offers that in today’s Gospel (John 14:15-27) Jesus explains, the night before he will die, the inheritance the disciples will receive, namely, the Holy Spirit.  This inheritance is a good and glorious inheritance, one that allowed disciples then and allows disciples today to live!

Decades ago, this congregation received an inheritance of land.  We have finally found a way to put this inheritance to work, creating life from it as we building our Sacred Grounds.  Yesterday, as we moved stone into the prayer labyrinth, we took one more Spirit-filled step in building an inheritance for the next generation.

Is Anyone Excluded?

 

Easter V (May 7, 2023)

“I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus, Gospel of John (14:6)

The world has plenty of divisions and a strong tendency toward exclusion. Are the words here of Jesus just simply one more example of religious exclusion?

Pastor Rob argues that Jesus does exclude – not people, but sin – so that ultimately, all people will be included at the table of the LORD.

The image comes from an article found in The Financial Tribune about social exclusion.

What is Abundant Life anyway?

 

Easter IV, Good Shepherd Sunday (April 30, 2023)

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” ~ Jesus, the Gospel of John (10:10). 

What does it mean to have abundant life?  The photo comes from Ethiopia, where members of our church did medical work through the Medan Initiative.  There stories challenge a lot of our conventional notions of what abundance means.  To put it another way:  We all know that abundant living involves more than stuff.  But what then does it consist of?

Working with the image of the sheet and the Good Shepherd, Pastor Rob offers that abundant life involves intimacy with God, fellowship with others and generosity toward our neighbor.