Whole Bunch of Sermons

dang, I'm behind.

I just posted 4 sermons on Fidgeting so here's a little guide to them and a highlight.

Maundy Thursday

Jesus, gets up from the table during dinner, either about to give his body and blood, or has just given it, and takes a towel. He takes a basin of clean, clear water, and washes the disciples feet. He washes these travelers feet, these feet that are caked with dirt, beaten and broken, cuts, scars and bruises on them. These are no pretty manicured feet, but feet of pain, feet of discomfort. The water that started clear will come out dark, unable to even be seen through. Jesus does not just get into the nice parts of the disciples lives, but into the very muck they tread through.

Jesus in washing the disciples feet cleans their soles, in more ways than one.

Easter Sunday

When I was younger I would watch the PBS kids show Lamb Chop's Play Along, the closing song of it was “This is the song that never ends.” Which I'm sure my parents and many other parents were really glad they taught to small children who really would sing it never-ending, such as myself. I know I had it in my head for a solid 20 minutes while working on this.

But that song that never ends is our story. Our story never ends because Jesus' impact in his death and resurrection never ends.

We just have to see that never ending story. When Mary and Mary were looking for Jesus, they did not find him. When they ran excited to tell about Jesus, he found them. It is in the times when we are living in the story of Christ, filled with our baptismal calling, that Jesus will find us, and show us his presence in this world.

Second Sunday of Easter

Jesus has Thomas touches his wounds. That's amazing. It wraps the incarnation (Christmas), the crucifixion (Good Friday) and the resurrection (Easter) all into one. Jesus is still human, he is the fully God, fully Human who came to us at Christmas, and he is still the crucified one, he still has the wounds he received on the Cross, that was not negated, but overcome, and through those two things we know he is risen completely. In one move Jesus has declared to us all we need to know. He has taken the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection and wrapped them in, with and around each other. For their importance is always interlocked and intertwined.

Third Sunday of Easter

In our text the two on the road walk slowly, plodding, Mary at the tomb is fearful and grieving, the disciples are hiding in a room grieving and fear for their lives. All of these appearances are to people who are full of grief, they have followed this man they thought to be messiah everywhere. They cannot recognize Jesus, because they cannot see him. They are so full of grief that they cannot recognize Jesus who they love.

Merritt continues with her answer.

… is this passage telling us something about us? Is it showing us the nature of grief and how disorienting it can be? Kathryn Johnston, a pastor at Mechanicsburg Presbyterian Church, explained her answer in a tweet to me this way, “When grief and the dark of the valley engulf you, you cannot even see Jesus in front of your face. He’s there. Just. keep. walking.”

When we need Jesus to reveal himself to us, he will show up, he will take our grief and enlighten our hearts.

Woman at the Well

Who is it that we ignore and walk past?

Who is it that we know?

Who is it that we love?

Advent Reflection by Archbishop of Canterbury

This is just fun!

It Gets Better: Bishop Mark Hanson, ELCA

A wonderful message expressing God's love for all of God's Children.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen

Barefoot in Jerusalem: Ana Sakni Hon...

My friend Elly's first post on her new blog about her new life in Jerusalem working for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land.

Barefoot in Jerusalem: Ana Sakni Hon...: "These past weeks I have been waiting for the time to write a proper ‘first blog post’. I kept thinking the time would present itself. I ke..."

Poems

I read these two poems at the Persistent Voice Poetry reading at Wartburg.

They speak a little to where I am at the moment.

Mother to Son

By Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

The Peace of Wild Things

BY WENDELL BERRY

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Recent Sermons at Fidgeting with the Word

I just posted about a month and a half of sermons over at Fidgeting with the Word so I decided I would give a little link message here to ease reading.

Palm Sunday

Maundy Thursday

Easter Sunday

Fourth Sunday After Easter - Psalm 23

Fifth Sunday After Easter - Phillip and the Eunuch



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Congressmen Visit Gaza

A Link from Congressman Brian Baird's congress website. Baird (D-Washington) and Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) just got back from visiting Gaza. Here is Baird's report.


E

Gone Going (Gone)

I don't know about you, but when I hear this song, I tend to pick up the last line of the chorus, "Gone people All awkward with their things Gone." I hear the song talking about the unnecessary spending that goes on today. About people who go out and buy "And cars and phones and diamond rings Bling, bling." This has been a trend that has died a little in the last year as more and more people became aware of their spending trends because of the economy.

I am a supporter of the Economic Policies of President Obama, and see that Government Spending in the right areas could help those who do not currently have the resources to spend their money get back into the economic loop.

One of the most often comparisons that people (read conservatives) have been making is that this stimulus package is a new New Deal and that in fact the New Deal was a failure that actually extended the recession of the 1929-33. But the recession was actually over in 1933, what they tend to be talking about is the unemployment rate returning to normal.




In an article found in the Guardian, a British Newspaper, Michael Tomasky talks about this issue, and how those who think this are wrong. Here are the last two lines of the article.

So the New Deal worked pretty doggone well. It didn't solve every problem. Yes, there are other legitimate criticisms to be made of Roosevelt. But the New Deal kept millions from starving and gave them jobs. And it generated economic activity – rural electrification, for example – that brought society tremendous benefit. And how might only tax cuts or doing nothing have done?

I can't believe we have to reargue these points. It's not that the Republicans don't know anything about economics. It's that they don't want to know anything about economics, and don't want to reckon with evidence. They have their ideology, chiseled into Pharaoh's obelisk, impervious to fact. How does one erase it?

Read the rest here.


Enjoy another version of the song rewritten with the Black Eyed Peas.