FIRST UNITED CHURCH of CHRIST

Easter comes and goes so quickly … but it leaves us with much to remember …

Remember How He Told You

Isaiah 65:17-25;  Luke 24:1-12 

Human memory is, at the same time, both sturdy and fragile. Taken as a whole, human memory is the sturdy tool that makes it possible for us to know both our collective history and our personal stories. Yes, we use books, songs, and artifacts of various kinds to assist our remembering, but those are just tools. It is our determination to keep the past alive, to honor it, learn from it, and sometimes repent from it that stretches our horizon out in time.

And yet human memory is also very fragile.

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Even in the midst of the excitement of the procession into Jerusalem (that we call Palm Sunday), Jesus was a person who emptied himself in the service of others.  As we walk through Holy Week, what can we learn from that emptying?

 Emptied

Luke 19:28-40; Philippians 2:5-11 

On Ash Wednesday, I asked you to reflect on something that you wanted to leave behind as you entered the journey of Lent. We wrote those things down – the resentments we wanted to release, the anger we wanted to calm, the disappointments we wanted to get over, the sorrows we wanted to be done with. We wrote them down, and burned them with the palms from last year, and those were the ashes with which we were marked.

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I usually include the pastoral prayer for the week when I post my sermon, but I haven’t preached for the last two weeks (while we heard from seminary intern Ruth MacKenzie and guest worship leader Neal Hagberg).  So here are the prayers from March 14 and 21.

Prayer for March 14, 2010

Holy One, we know that you hear the contents of our hearts even before we speak them to you; nonetheless today we offer prayers for our secrets.

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So … does God send disasters to punish people?  Here’s what Jesus had to say about that …

Who Is to Blame?

Psalm 63:1-8; Luke 13:1-9 

Jesus is asked a great many questions in the book of Luke. Most of the time he answers with a story or a parable or another question. But in the passage we just heard this morning, he twice answers clearly and succinctly: “No.”

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When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he didn’t seem to agonize over what to do.  I wonder what we can learn from his encounter with these temptations …

Tempted … Again …

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Luke 4: 1-13 

The devil asked Jesus the question we would like to ask him: Who are you, really? And because he was the devil, he phrased the question in a provocative way: If are the Son of God, then …” He made it sound as if everyone knew what the Son of God would think and do, and so the only question was whether Jesus would meet those expectations or not.

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The story of Jesus’ transfiguration has a lot to teach us, even if we are discomforted by the mysterious details. (The original title of this sermon was “Optical Illuminations,” but you’ll see why I changed it.)

Optical Illuminations

Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36 

I thought a lot about the title of this sermon. Early this week I settled on “Optical Illuminations,” because I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out on a limb with the title that was really in my head – “Optional Illuminations.” But that’s the question that wouldn’t leave me alone these last few days: Do I have to believe this story about mysterious lights, ghostly appearances, and words from heaven?

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What do these things have in common:  Church camp, Muir Woods, and Jesus helping the disciples fish?  Find out here <grin>!

Deep Water

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11

About two weeks before my friend Katherine Mulhern and I left for seminary – she to Eden Seminary in St. Louis and I to Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley – we drove across the state of Washington to our beloved church camp on the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene just over the state line in Idaho. Our friend and pastor Todd Wyrick was just finishing a week with the Senior High Camp, and he had promised to give us a blessing for our journeys.

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I don’t usually think of St. Paul as a funny guy, but he makes some broad jokes while trying to persuade the Christians in Corinth to honor the gifts of all of their members.  Let’s laugh with him, and then listen again to that important message …

 A Thousand Body Parts

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21 

Last week was Part One of the message(from 1 Corinthians 12): There are varieties of gifts. This week is Part Two: All of them are equally important.

And did you notice that St. Paul wrote Part Two with humor?

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There are no words of scripture that I quote more often than these from 1 Corinthians 12:  “There are varieties of gifts.”  Here is why I think it is so important …. (after I say a few words about my June 30 retirement that I announced earlier this week) …

1 Corinthians 12:4-11;  John 2:1-11 

Many Gifts, One Spirit

I was looking forward to preaching a sermon this morning about weddings. The evocative story of Jesus providing 150 gallons of good wine for the wedding in Cana

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Have you ever noticed that it is harder to receive words of love and affirmation than it is to offer them to others?  That is true even when the words come from God …

I Have Called You by Name

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 

There’s a wonderful scene in Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Imogene Herdman, who had never heard the Christmas story before, is asking questions about how Jesus got his name. Alice Wendleken, the prissy girl who usually got to play Mary in the pageant, steps in to explain.

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Today’s service was much quieter than usual — silence replaced many of the words.  So if you are reading this “sermon,” I hope you will sit quietly and pause for a long time where it is indicated.

In the Beginning

Psalm 147:12-20; John 1:1-15

It is after a thing happens that we think about it. When we are in the middle of an event or a happening, our attention is directed towards what is going on and what we need to be doing. While the adrenalin is flowing, not much pondering is going on.

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Several folks have asked about the two stories I read in church on December 27.  Here they are — I’ve given you the links to amazon.com because they have full publication information.

Snowmen at Christmas, by Caralyn Buehner, pictures by Mark Buehner

Great Joy by Kate Dicamillo, Illustrated by Bagram [...]

One of the blessings of the Christmas Eve service is the singing of carols by so many voices.  But in another way, too, it takes a lot of voices to celebrate Christmas …

Many Voices

Luke 2:1-20  Matthew 2:1-12 

If we opened up my family’s mental scrapbook of memories and looked at the pages for Christmas of 1956, here’s what we might find:

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The ancients debated whether Mary was Christotokos — the Mother of Christ — or Theotokos — the Mother of God.   But I wonder about the ways that we are all Mothers of God …

Mothers of God

Micah 5:2-5a  Luke 1:39-45;46-55 

Many centuries ago, in the 14^th century, Meister Eckhart, a German priest and mystic, penned the words I used for today’s reflection in the bulletin: “We are all meant to be mothers of God.” Those words have haunted me this week,

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Our guest preacher on November 22 was the Rev. Elena Larssen, one of the Associate Conference Ministers here in Minnesota.  Her sermon includes both population statistics and fatty acids … read on!

Life Over Death

Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

Welcome and Greetings~

I heard some amazing news from The Rev. Wade Schemmel, Conference Minister of the Northern Plains Conference, which is mostly comprised of North Dakota. He shared with my colleagues and I that the population has declined in such a way that the following is true:

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