sermon repository...
I'm for the most part trying to upload only my manuscript sermons -- it's hard to upload a no-notes sermon without a video of it! This one's almost entirely a manuscript sermon, although at the very end it breaks into some almost-poetry I just riffed off of. :)
From January 2008, actually written for supply.
Beloved -- Mark 1:4-15
About ten years ago, when I was working at the University of Maryland, I was a member of a Methodist church in College Park: First United Methodist. It was a good church. When I was there I participated in one of the best Bible studies I have ever engaged in. The materials came from Cokesbury, which is the United Methodist publishing house -- it was a thirty-four-week program which started at Genesis and went through Revelation. We read the whole Bible. Now, the materials were good -- it's the Disciple Bible Study Cokesbury puts out -- but by far the best part of the experience was sharing it with this amazing and diverse group of people, all of whom had committed to the whole thirty-four weeks. Imagine sitting down over time to read the Bible cover to cover knowing that you were going to be responsible week after week to a group of fellow Christians who were on that same journey with you. It was really an amazing experience. But of all those weeks what I remember the most is the week we talked about baptism.
Remember, this was a Methodist church, so most of the folks had no memory of their baptism. But another member of the class had also been raised Baptist, and she and I told the stories of our baptisms. And there was this moment when Claire and I -- and the rest of the class -- realized what a blessing we had had to have been raised in a tradition that gave us that experience. We're blessed as Baptists in that we have ancestors who were martyred so that we could have the opportunity to be baptized as we are.
Do you remember your baptism? Do you remember how it felt?
I was thirteen and probably woefully unprepared -- I was crazy nervous walking down into that water, and I don't even think I knew the minister was going to ask me questions! -- but I remember coming up feeling so light, like some heavy weight I didn't even know I'd been carrying had been taken off my shoulders, and at the same time so full, and I will carry that with me no matter what life throws at me.
When Jesus came south from his home in Galilee to the banks of the Jordan river to be baptized by John, he was maybe thirty years old. The Bible is largely silent about Jesus' life before that moment. Mark -- the first of the gospels to be written down -- Mark starts here, with Jesus' baptism; Matthew shows us an image of Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus firmly ensconced in Galilee before jumping thirty years to the baptism at the Jordan; and even Luke offers us only one tantalizing glimpse of a precocious twelve-year-old Jesus scaring the heck out of his parents when he wanders off in the big city and misses the northbound caravan with which the family was supposed to head home.
Otherwise we can only imagine Jesus' life before thirty, a well-loved precocious child and oldest son of a carpenter named Jospeh and his wife Mary in a backwater town of a backwater province of the Roman empire. We know Jesus had brothers, one of whom, James, would later become head of the church in Jerusalem after Jesus' death. We know he learned to read and write Hebrew, the language of the torah scrolls, and to speak Aramaic, the trade language of that area of the world. We imagine, as Joseph's presumed heir, he learned the family business and lived a good and relatively ordinary life as a Galilean carpenter.
We don't really know very much. But we do know what all four gospels tell us: that one day Jesus walked away from that ordinary life in Nazareth of Galilee and sought out John the baptizer in the Judean wilderness to the south. And he found John on the banks of the Jordan river, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Now Jesus is Christ, Messiah, Son of God, our Saviour: you and I know that; it's what we testified to, what we professed at our baptism. But Jesus was also fully human in all that that means. We human beings live in time, moment by moment, and with each breath we take we choose to listen for God's call to us -- or not -- and to follow that call, to work for the kingdom, or to turn our back on it. Jesus was human, but unlike the rest of us, he was always listening for the father, and he always used that human will of his to do our Father's will. Unlike the rest of us, he did love God with all his heart, soul, and mind, and he did love his neighbour as himself.
And John was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Yet Jesus who had no sin to repent stood waiting in the press of the crowd in the muggy heat of Judea, with the throng of hopeful people straining to catch a glimpse of the rugged locust-eating prophet offering a baptism of repentance. Jesus stood with them in that crowd -- he stands with us in that crowd -- and Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan. And Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.'
.... sketchy end to be riffed on... ....
It's no coincidence that in the very next sentance the gospel writer sees Jesus driven out into the wilderness, far from that comfortable family and that ordinary life in Nazareth -- to undergo deprivation (he was hungry enough that turning stones into bread was a real temptation, gut-wrenchingly hungry) and to listen to the devil quoting scripture.
Beloved is a hard road
Beloved I have work for you to do
Jesus' ministry was just beginning. He had yet to stand in the synagogue and preach that the words of Isaiah had been fulfilled. He had yet to turn water into wine, or to heal anyone, or to calm the storm, or to overturn the moneylenders' tables in the temple, or to preach the sermon on the mount or the sermon on the plain.
You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased
well pleased?
well pleased he had come to the crossroads that was the Jordan
well pleased with Jesus' choice to follow the father's call from his ordinary life
Jesus stands with us on the banks of the river
God calls us to the river
and he calls us to the wilderness
and he calls us to a life of transformation
to make wine from water and to bring health from sickness
to overturn the moneylenders' tables and to calm the storm
He loves us and he calls us
Beloved is a hard road; beloved I have work for you to do
But we are all promised what I sensed all those years ago at my baptism
Lightness -- thanks be to God, our sins are forgiven, and we don't carry them any more
and Fullness -- God is always with us.
From January 2008, actually written for supply.
Beloved -- Mark 1:4-15
About ten years ago, when I was working at the University of Maryland, I was a member of a Methodist church in College Park: First United Methodist. It was a good church. When I was there I participated in one of the best Bible studies I have ever engaged in. The materials came from Cokesbury, which is the United Methodist publishing house -- it was a thirty-four-week program which started at Genesis and went through Revelation. We read the whole Bible. Now, the materials were good -- it's the Disciple Bible Study Cokesbury puts out -- but by far the best part of the experience was sharing it with this amazing and diverse group of people, all of whom had committed to the whole thirty-four weeks. Imagine sitting down over time to read the Bible cover to cover knowing that you were going to be responsible week after week to a group of fellow Christians who were on that same journey with you. It was really an amazing experience. But of all those weeks what I remember the most is the week we talked about baptism.
Remember, this was a Methodist church, so most of the folks had no memory of their baptism. But another member of the class had also been raised Baptist, and she and I told the stories of our baptisms. And there was this moment when Claire and I -- and the rest of the class -- realized what a blessing we had had to have been raised in a tradition that gave us that experience. We're blessed as Baptists in that we have ancestors who were martyred so that we could have the opportunity to be baptized as we are.
Do you remember your baptism? Do you remember how it felt?
I was thirteen and probably woefully unprepared -- I was crazy nervous walking down into that water, and I don't even think I knew the minister was going to ask me questions! -- but I remember coming up feeling so light, like some heavy weight I didn't even know I'd been carrying had been taken off my shoulders, and at the same time so full, and I will carry that with me no matter what life throws at me.
When Jesus came south from his home in Galilee to the banks of the Jordan river to be baptized by John, he was maybe thirty years old. The Bible is largely silent about Jesus' life before that moment. Mark -- the first of the gospels to be written down -- Mark starts here, with Jesus' baptism; Matthew shows us an image of Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus firmly ensconced in Galilee before jumping thirty years to the baptism at the Jordan; and even Luke offers us only one tantalizing glimpse of a precocious twelve-year-old Jesus scaring the heck out of his parents when he wanders off in the big city and misses the northbound caravan with which the family was supposed to head home.
Otherwise we can only imagine Jesus' life before thirty, a well-loved precocious child and oldest son of a carpenter named Jospeh and his wife Mary in a backwater town of a backwater province of the Roman empire. We know Jesus had brothers, one of whom, James, would later become head of the church in Jerusalem after Jesus' death. We know he learned to read and write Hebrew, the language of the torah scrolls, and to speak Aramaic, the trade language of that area of the world. We imagine, as Joseph's presumed heir, he learned the family business and lived a good and relatively ordinary life as a Galilean carpenter.
We don't really know very much. But we do know what all four gospels tell us: that one day Jesus walked away from that ordinary life in Nazareth of Galilee and sought out John the baptizer in the Judean wilderness to the south. And he found John on the banks of the Jordan river, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Now Jesus is Christ, Messiah, Son of God, our Saviour: you and I know that; it's what we testified to, what we professed at our baptism. But Jesus was also fully human in all that that means. We human beings live in time, moment by moment, and with each breath we take we choose to listen for God's call to us -- or not -- and to follow that call, to work for the kingdom, or to turn our back on it. Jesus was human, but unlike the rest of us, he was always listening for the father, and he always used that human will of his to do our Father's will. Unlike the rest of us, he did love God with all his heart, soul, and mind, and he did love his neighbour as himself.
And John was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Yet Jesus who had no sin to repent stood waiting in the press of the crowd in the muggy heat of Judea, with the throng of hopeful people straining to catch a glimpse of the rugged locust-eating prophet offering a baptism of repentance. Jesus stood with them in that crowd -- he stands with us in that crowd -- and Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan. And Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.'
.... sketchy end to be riffed on... ....
It's no coincidence that in the very next sentance the gospel writer sees Jesus driven out into the wilderness, far from that comfortable family and that ordinary life in Nazareth -- to undergo deprivation (he was hungry enough that turning stones into bread was a real temptation, gut-wrenchingly hungry) and to listen to the devil quoting scripture.
Beloved is a hard road
Beloved I have work for you to do
Jesus' ministry was just beginning. He had yet to stand in the synagogue and preach that the words of Isaiah had been fulfilled. He had yet to turn water into wine, or to heal anyone, or to calm the storm, or to overturn the moneylenders' tables in the temple, or to preach the sermon on the mount or the sermon on the plain.
You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased
well pleased?
well pleased he had come to the crossroads that was the Jordan
well pleased with Jesus' choice to follow the father's call from his ordinary life
Jesus stands with us on the banks of the river
God calls us to the river
and he calls us to the wilderness
and he calls us to a life of transformation
to make wine from water and to bring health from sickness
to overturn the moneylenders' tables and to calm the storm
He loves us and he calls us
Beloved is a hard road; beloved I have work for you to do
But we are all promised what I sensed all those years ago at my baptism
Lightness -- thanks be to God, our sins are forgiven, and we don't carry them any more
and Fullness -- God is always with us.