Sermon Notes (Page 11)

As we conclude our Questions That Matter series, it is my hope that this has been a time of exploration and growth. This final question in the series may be the most asked, and is certainly the most common question I am asked when people want to push or challenge me on my religiosity. I vividly remember the aggressive phrasing of a non-theist friend as he asked about the existence of evil in the face of an all-loving God. I…

We are nearing the end of this season of questions with just a few weeks to go. This week’s question comes from an LJUMC member who asks about our responsibility in standing up to bullies and bigots. I was reminded of our Baptismal vows to “renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world” and to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” As a spiritual community of faithful Christians, we might…

This week’s topic in our “Questions That Matter” series is inspired by the Epistle reading from our Revised Common Lectionary. Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus tells his readers that they “are fellow citizens with God’s people…” who “belong to God’s household.” If your household is like mine, sometimes there is disagreement or even argument. This seems to be the case for Paul’s readers as he invites them into reconciliation with one another as one body in God’s household.…

This week we continue our “Questions That Matter” series with a question about community. This is deeply connected to our upcoming festivities this Sunday as we gather together to celebrate Independence Day. As we connect with one another, we will see floats and friends, we will laugh, we will see one another and this day of celebration through a common lens. We will surely meet new people and see people we haven’t seen in a long time. We will connect…

This week we continue our “Questions That Matter” series with a query from Joey, age 8: “How many people wrote the Bible? And why are some stories repeated?” This is a profound question of critical analysis! I sat in classrooms in seminary with graduate students who had never thought to ask questions like this about the Bible. It’s also not that easy to answer, unless we say, “Well, we don’t exactly know!”. What we know today as “The Bible” has gone…

This Sunday we begin our new series on Questions that Matter. If you have yet to hear about this series, we are taking questions from the congregation and other sources about our faith, spirituality, denomination, congregation, and more in an effort to grow in discipleship. This first week, we address a deep question that is rooted in our experience of God. As United Methodists, many of us affirm the Wesleyan Quadrilateral where we approach faith through scripture, tradition, reason, and…

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday and begins our regular season that follows Pentecost. This is the longest season in our Lectionary calendar, lasting all the way until we begin the church year again in Advent! We use the liturgical color green for this season, and one way we might think about this is as a season of growth. Beginning this season of growth, we include one of the most-often-memorized scriptures. Many of us memorized John 3:16 in early Sunday School…

This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday and I’m so excited!! In the Christian tradition (see the Acts text below), we celebrate this as the time when God’s Holy Spirit is given to the disciples who are then empowered to do some incredible things! Of course this is so incredible, it seems, that some of those nearby assume that the disciples have had too much to drink! Peter sets the crowd straight with an empowered homily. But it begs the question: how…

This is our final week for our sermon series following The Lord’s Prayer. This final week, we conclude with a section generally included by most Protestants that is commonly known as a doxology: for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. What does forever mean? Generally, I don’t think we understand the passage of time very well. I read an admittedly dark article online the other day that said in part that we will spend more…

This week, we move to our penultimate service in our sermon series following The Lord’s Prayer, seeking God’s deliverance from all that tempts us. Just as we spoke last week about how we sometimes don’t realize that we are in need of forgiveness, I suggest it may be possible that we don’t realize when we are tempted. I would further suggest that we don’t always know what it is that tempts us. We might think our temptation lies in one…

This week, in continuing our sermon series following The Lord’s Prayer, we examine the concept of forgiveness. It may be worth noting that throughout this series, we’ve chosen to read the Matthew text from a different translation each week. This brings us perspective as we read this prayer throughout the series. I hope that it is also illustrative for us as we remember the many ways Christians from different denominations say this prayer! If you are familiar with other traditions,…

When I was in Boot Camp at MCRD Parris Island, there was a food hoarding problem (in retrospect, I imagine this is a perennial thing). Recruits would squirrel away peanut butter packets or granola bars or apples–really, anything we could get our hands on–because even though we were ostensibly eating 2200 calories a day, we were always hungry. Maybe even more than this, though, when someone else (whom you barely know) is in control of your every moment, it can…