The Value of Creation (Ecology)

For anyone who has a serious concern for the future of creation, a conscientious pro-life position can never be synonymous with the ideology of the current "pro-life" advocates. If we are honest with ourselves and we exhibit an informed concern for coming generations, we will grudgingly come to realize that a worldwide policy which prevents abortion is a guaranteed recipe for the elimination of a viable earthly environment for any life at all, human or otherwise.

The Devaluation of American Life

In the United States of America, there has been a gradual erosion of the value of certain segments of American life.  Life in the poorest neighborhoods is cheap, as when zoning laws are changed to obliterate entire neighborhoods of the poor, or when those who most need medical assistance during the pandemic were the last to receive it. The prophet Jeremiah spoke of such times when he sarcastically wrote, "Then I said, 'These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the Lord, the law of their God.  Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the law of their God.'  But they all alike had broken the yoke," Jeremiah observed; "they had burst the bonds" (Jeremiah 5:4-5).

The Chronicles of a Great King - Joab: Uneasy Lies the Head

It has never been easy to be in charge of any type of organization, but it maybe has never been harder in our lifetime than it is right now.  The world is in a period of rapid and unpredictable transition, and leaders of government, business, education, service, and even religion are having a hard time maintaining the appearance of control, let alone progress. …   Often we make a critical error of judgment about those who are in positions of authority.  We want to like them even more than we respect them, but liking and respecting are two different things. 

The Chapel at Nineteen: What Next?

Nearly every congregation of every religion that ever existed came into being and then ceased to exist or will cease its existence, like a breath. There are many thousands of extant synagogues, churches, and mosques, but all of them shall cease to be at some point in the future. As Tennyson noted to God in his poem, “Our little systems have their day,/ They have their day, and cease to be;/ They are but broken lights of Thee/ And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.”

The Chronicles of a Great King - Saul and Jonathan: The Meaning of Grief

This morning I am beginning a series of sermons on one of the greatest figures of the Bible: David, the king of Israel.  You will see as we go along that "great" is a word which has to be understood in context.  David's greatness can be perceived only in the midst of his traumas, and of those there are many.  There are more skeletons in David's closet than there are in Gray’s Anatomy.

God, the Reconciler

Many people get emotionally mushy at Christmas, and many carols and other Christmas songs foster theological squishiness. Up to a point, that is probably inevitable. But Jesus did not come to earth primarily to make us feel good about either him or ourselves. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. That is why Jesus was born. Jesus had a unique calling from God, compared to everyone else who has ever lived.

In Search of the Lost: 6) The Father

"Why do you hang around with sinners?" the Pharisees and scribes had asked Jesus. “Why do you give them any attention at all?  Why don't you spend your time with righteous people?" What they really meant was this: "Why are you almost always with street people and welfare families and unwed mothers?  Why don't you hang out exclusively with people like us? We are the crème de la crème of religion!"

In Search of the Lost: 1) The Nature of Sheep

The nature of sheep is to get lost. The nature of the shepherd is to find the lost sheep. Jesus said both things, and each statement got Him equally into trouble. His theological enemies were reviled by the behavior of lost people. Nonetheless, do you believe Jesus is right about lost sheep? And if you believe it, do you suppose you might get found, if you feel lost, even if you doubt that will ever happen?

Halloween, Luther, and the Reformation

Thank God for God, and for Jesus. Were it not for them, what we believe might be fundamentally little more than ignorant superstitions. Superstition was the sort of cockamamie thinking that led to the Renaissance and the Reformation. By the eighteenth century, John Locke, Edmund Burke, William Pitt, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison came along. At last we were out of the bad times and into much better times.

Planters, Waterers, and the Grower

We are standing on the shoulders of giants - - - all of us. Back there we all had our own giants, and we are who we are in large measure because of who they were. God moved us to be moved by them. They were the personal movers and shakers who helped nurture us into the people we became. Everyone has a role to play in the great scheme of things. God weaves the lives of all of us into a beautiful tapestry of human existence on Planet Earth.

Doing the Most with What We Have

During the lifetime of Jesus, almost nobody lived long enough to retire, at least in the sense that we understand retirement. Nearly everyone lived a subsistence existence. Few people grew old, and those who did get old still worked at whatever they were able to do to keep the three-generation-family-all-living-in-one-place operating at optimal capacity. Whether young or old, talented or limited in ability, everyone was expected to pull his or her weight to keep the wolf away from the door.

Why Anthropogenic Climate Change WILL Nearly Destroy Everything on Earth

The word “anthropogenic” is a scientific word. It means “human-generated.” Therefore what is being implied by this bleak sermon title is that human beings will destroy nearly all the life of all the plants, animals, and people on earth. We are the primary cause of the current climate-change crisis. If we keep doing what we have been doing, we may succeed in destroying everything, so that Planet Earth will become like all the other planets in our solar system, with no life at all.

The Bible as the Word of God

What does it mean to say that the Bible is the word of God? Does it mean that everything in the Bible is what God told somebody to write down, or did they write it down, and then , years or centuries later, they decided it was holy scripture and it all was approved to go into the Bible? Are Christians obligated to accept everything in the Bible literally to be God’s word?

The Chapel Without Walls: January and December, 2024

On January 5, 2004, we held our first service. On January 6, 2024, we will celebrate our twentieth anniversary as a congregation. To be candid, I never thought about a twentieth anniversary back then, but I do now, because it is an important milestone. On December 19, 2024, I will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of my ordination, if I live that long. I have no reason at this time to imagine that I won’t live that long. However, sixty years is a very long time for any preacher still to be preaching.

Does God Answer Prayers?

If you don’t get what you ask for in your prayers, does that mean God does not answer them? When David did not escape his enemy, apparently he decided that if he continued to trust in God’s steadfast love, he would be okay whether or not he averted his adversary. Maybe he concluded that was the only answer he needed. Trust in God, and you’ll get through whatever is necessary. That may have not been a crystal-clear answer to the Sweet Singer of Israel, but it seemed to be enough of an answer for him all the same.