2020 Sermons

Judging and Being Judged

“Judge not, that you be not judged.” We will come back to that, so we move on to the second thing Jesus said about judging others. “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” If we judge other people harshly, rather than their views or their behavior, we probably will also be harshly judged by people. No one warms up to someone who constantly cuts others to pieces, and in fact the cutters may be cut to pieces themselves by those who see them cutting.

Evolution, Devolution, and Human Behavior

Psalm 8, like almost half of the 150 Psalms included in the Bible, is attributed to David. Either he or someone after his time was astounded by how far he thought humanity had evolved after the creation narrative in the first three chapters of Genesis. Speaking to God in his Psalm, he was moved to say, “When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast created, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor.”

Is Church Membership a Necessity for Salvation?

why would I entitle a sermon, “Is Church Membership a Necessity for Salvation?”? For the past several weeks, and for the next month-plus, I have preached and shall be preaching several sermons that are, shall we say, homiletically unusual. Maybe the pandemic or the upcoming election have me a little unstrung. I have read many books on many different subjects in the lockdown, and that may also have had a bearing on the diversity of these sermons. But months ago I came up with these topics, and I shall carry through with them, hoping that they may somehow be helpful for all of us in our life’s pilgrimage.

Is Faith a Necessity for a Christian?

I can only tell you this: Through over half a century of being a pastor, I have known a number of people who attended the churches I served who admitted to me with astonishing regularity that they had little or no “faith” at all, meaning the kind of affirmations which most Christians would associate with being integral to “the Christian faith.” They apparently live Christian lives with little or no Christian “faith” to generate that. Here I’m no longer talking about denominational identification faith statements; I am just talking about very general considerations, such as belief in God or Jesus Christ or salvation (however that is defined, and it is defined in many different ways), or the Trinity (don’t get me started), or whatever other “basic beliefs” you think should be included in a minimum laundry list of Christian beliefs.

On Letting Bygones Be Bygones

Even if I am incorrect in how I interpret “Let bygones be bygones,” here is what I take it mainly to mean: Don’t hold grudges against people who wronged you in the past. Especially don’t hold it against them in the present or future. It is not only foolish to hold grudges, because it does harm to you spiritually and psychologically to do so, but it is morally wrong to do so. God and Jesus command us to forgive others for their sins or misdoings against us. Neither God not Jesus merely suggest that we forgive others; they command us to forgive them.

What Do the Demonstrations Demonstrate?

The demonstrations erupted spontaneously because of police brutality and killings. But the concerns are far deeper and broader than that issue alone. The president’s handling (or mishandling) of the pandemic is a secondary cause. The pandemic put millions on the streets who had been idled by losing their jobs or by doing their jobs at home. This has been a perfect storm of social unrest which manifested itself in people assembling to express deep grievances.

Monotheism and the Jews

Traditionally, when a Jewish congregation came to the last word in the Shema, which is echod, they would shout it: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE! How long they followed that tradition no one will ever know. But it surely goes way back into the distant history of the Jews, when they alone were the only monotheists in the world. They wanted to remind themselves and everyone else that they alone held fast to the one Lord of Israel and of the entire Universe, Adonoy, The Lord of all.

July 19 Sermon: The Origin of Evil

God alone is the answer to the problem of evil. He alone can absorb it into Himself, and the cross of Jesus of Nazareth is the best possible illustration of that truth. Humans obviously cannot solve the problem of evil, or long since we would have done it. We are the only creatures capable of doing evil, and we all engage in it. Fortunately, for most of us, it is on a fairly rare basis.