March 29, 2020

In the second half of our text today, John the Baptist witnesses to his two disciples when he says, “see, there’s the guy I’ve been talking about!” and they get all excited and follow Jesus. One of them, Andrew, goes and gets his brother Peter. Then just after this, Jesus finds Philip, but then Philip finds Nathanael and tells him all about Jesus in really excited terms… “This is the one! The one that everyone from Moses on down has been waiting for, the one we have heard about in the synagogues and the scriptures! Hurry, come see this Jesus guy, he’s the real deal!”

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March 22, 2020

Who sinned? We don’t ask that question in our modern lives in the UCC, do we? But we do ask it all the time at home, at work, and in our families. “Who did that?” becomes the question when we want to know why things are out of order or something is broken. What parent hasn’t said those three words about a thousand times throughout a child’s life? “Who says?” becomes the teenager’s lament for questioning the status quo and is their go-to phrase for plausible deniability. “You don’t want to go there” is the adult version of both of these statements, indicating a passive-aggressive query, but one with real-world consequences if it happens on the job.

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March 6, 2020

Most of us did not attend the Ash Wednesday services on February 26 over at the Methodist Church. No I know Ash Wednesday is not exactly a celebration day, at least in the sense that Christmas and Easter might be. But Ash Wednesday does mark the start of the season of Lent, a season in which we are reminded that we are carbon atoms at heart and will return to that state soon enough. “From dust wert thou created, to dust shalt thou return” or some such words are said over 2 billion times that day. Blessing indeed.

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March 6, 2020

In our scripture today, Jesus is tempted three times, but it speaks of the struggle between our own spiritual wilderness, easy answers, and faith in Christian Discipleship. Jesus had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. What’s special about that? (Noah, Moses flight and Mt Sinai, wandering desert, David/Goliath). The number 40 appears over and over again, and seems to indicate times of testing our faith and of Spiritual truth. Let’s remember that (repeat Testing and Truth).

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March 6, 2020

When I was growing up, before the days of video games much less computers and iPods and phones…yeah, I know, along with many of you we grew up a million years ago… we had some really cool stuff to play with, didn’t we? So while I didn’t grow up very poor, we still had toys in those early years that were not just gently used, but very, very well-handled by many generations of kids. Remember the construction kits that pre-dated Bob the builder? They called them erector sets, with all kinds of connectors and sticks and flags and wheels and stuff. And we had these other things that we played with called Lincoln Logs. Remember those? They were these 2-12” long notched sticks that fit together just at 30, 45, and 90 degree angles so that you, too, could build all manner of cool log cabins. Just like the one honest Abe Lincoln would have lived in, which is why they were called Lincoln logs, I imagine.

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March 6, 2020

Our text might distract us from the real issue it’s addressing for us today. It’s the 21st century, and we sure don’t issue edicts on purity codes of body and soul anymore, at least not in the UCC. But the church is dividing over whose righteousness matters more, and what the new Christians need to attend to more and which they can keep. It’s kind of what we’ve been talking about in most of the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus wants us to be all in. And the two things he wants are for us to love God and pursue God’s truth. And the way to do that in the world is to praise God first for all that we are and all that is, and to love our neighbor as God loves us.

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March 6, 2020

What was last week’s Bible reading that went with Scout Sunday? Beatitudes, that’s right. These lofty verses tend to do something quite contrary to Christian discipleship and living, and I’d like to talk about that. There’s two things we need to look out for before we move forward in Matthew’s Gospel. The first is that we don’t regard these as Jesus’ words, but a set of principles, a collection of rules, or maybe we just see them as a happier version of the Ten Commandments.

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March 6, 2020

On Scout Sunday we celebrate how we build up kids to be responsible adults, yes, but also how we put them on a journey to live outside themselves in service to others. We heard a little bit about that already and that living beyond one’s own wants and needs are also a core part of the duties in the Scout Oath. Three things are in that oath—duty to God, duty to others, and duty to self. It’s not an either-or choice; it’s an all-in oath, and these three promises cannot be unlinked from each other. But the first of these is duty to God, and that’s where as a church we can share perspectives on this day here at TCC.

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March 6, 2020

Today’s text is about fishing, and fishing takes a lot of forms. Just like last week when we talked about light and learned something, let’s go to school today also and talk a little bit about the way folks go about fishing. Growing up I learned the lazy way to spend a day fishing is just to put some bait on a hook and throw it in the water. When I was a boy I visited my grandfather who lived on Otter Creek which fed the Mississippi River, and it was really easy to get a big branch, some twine and a hook, and wait from shore, and throw the line in about than 8-10 feet out in the creek.

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March 6, 2020

In the second half of our text today, John the Baptist witnesses to his two disciples when he says, “see, there’s the guy I’ve been talking about!” and they get all excited and follow Jesus. One of them, Andrew, goes and gets his brother Peter. Then just after this, Jesus finds Philip, but then Philip finds Nathanael and tells him all about Jesus in really excited terms… “This is the one! The one that everyone from Moses on down has been waiting for, the one we have heard about in the synagogues and the scriptures! Hurry, come see this Jesus guy, he’s the real deal!”

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