May 22, 2022
Today we are celebrating some pretty big changes. Nine of our young people are about to make the momentous step from high school to the adult world. That’s a big deal, twelve years in the making! Y’all have worked hard, studied, done service hours, projects, sports and band and all kinds of extracurriculars, and now you’re at this moment when you are about to graduate. Life is full of transitions, but this is one of the most important in your lives so far. You’re about to step into a whole new world as young adults. But graduation isn’t the only big transition happening today. Just a few minutes ago, we welcomed Oliver into the kingdom through the waters of baptism. He might not know it yet, but it is probably the most important transition he’s ever going to experience—one from captivity to sin and death, into the freedom of life in Christ. These two big changes—graduation and baptism—mark today as an important day to hear what God has to say about the transitions in our lives.
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May 8, 2022
I’ve read that if the best-paid people were the people that worked the hardest, then the women of West Africa would be the richest people on earth. In fact, women around the world have a capacity for hard work. And it shows in the way that programs that provide microloans—small loans for small businesses in the developing world—show time and again how readily women can multiply the gifts that they have when they’re given the opportunity. So it’s little wonder that we should take the time to honor the women who move the world—mothers, mothers in spirit, and mother figures. May 1, 2022 (Confirmation Sunday)
Confirmands: y’all have come a long way. We’ve had a disruptive past two years, with the whole world getting thrown into a tailspin by the pandemic and y’all having to adapt to new ways of doing school, being church, and, of course, coming to confirmation. But today has been years in the making. It started back when y’all were in Sunday school, learning the big stories of the Bible. It kept going while your parents and grandparents brought you to church—maybe some Sundays a little more willingly than others. And you had four years of confirmation, writing worship notes, coming to church on Wednesdays, going on mission trips—but the day is finally here. April 24, 2022
My sister and I are not allowed to sit next to each other in church. We were officially banned from doing so by our parents after one Sunday service. See, what had happened was I was home from college, and we decided to switch things up by sitting in a different place in the church, but it was just the two of us. The thing is, my sister and I love to be the peanut gallery—and unfortunately, we kept up that habit during the pastor’s sermon. But that wasn’t what got us banned, oh no. What got us banned was that Katherine said something that really tickled my funny bone, and I simply couldn’t stop laughing. And since I couldn’t stop laughing, she couldn’t stop laughing either. Well, cue some dagger eyes from my mom and five minutes of calming down and we ended up banned from ever sitting next to each other in church again. April 17, 2022
Sometimes things aren’t where you thought you left them. I have misplaced so many things it’s become a running joke in our house, but one that still stands out is one time that I lost my sunglasses. It was several years ago, and as Annie and I were getting ready to go on a walk, I just could not find them. We searched all the places I might have put them down—the bedside table, the kitchen table, the living room, even the car. They had completely disappeared. So I had to just grin and bear it going on a walk on a sunny day. Then, while she was getting dinner ready, Annie found my sunglasses in the refrigerator! I had apparently put them down amid the groceries and then they got put into the fridge with the lettuce. Sometimes things aren’t where you thought you left them. April 16, 2022 (Easter Vigil)
You know what’s really fun? Getting to be in on a surprise. There’s something wonderfully conspiratorial about knowing some really great thing that’s going to happen to someone else, and you know before they do, so you get to anticipate how they’ll react. It’s even more fun when you’re the one who gets to spring the surprise—whether that’s a super awesome gift, or a surprise birthday party, or even a surprise visit from a beloved relative. Surprises are fun. But I think “fun” isn’t the first word that would come to mind for Mary when she had this incredible surprise to tell. Earthshaking, sure. Mind-blowing, of course. Indescribably good, definitely. Because for a moment, there in the garden, standing with the newly-risen Jesus, Mary was, for the first and last time, the only human being on the planet that knew the surprise. Literally no one else knew—have you ever thought about that when reading this resurrection story? I’ve read it—preached on it—six years now and it just dawned on me this time around! April 14, 2022 (Maundy Thursday)
If you had twenty-four hours left to live, how would you use it? For almost everyone, the answer would come down to making sure every moment could be spent with loved ones—telling them all the things you ever wanted to tell them, and making sure they knew just how much you loved them. Some people are given the opportunity to know (to some extent) how long they have, and they get to do just that. In tonight’s gospel, we see just how Jesus chose to use the time he had left before he would go, as he said, where his disciples couldn’t go. This is an emotional scene, where Jesus has his last supper with the disciples who had followed him for around three years at this point. He needs to tell them everything that’s left, making sure they have the right takeaways from his teachings. He prays for them, and he offers all the comfort he can muster to get them through the next few days and all that would come. He knows he doesn’t have a lot of time, and maybe it’s for that reason that he takes the time to show them, rather than just tell them, what the most important part of their identity as his followers will be. April 3, 2022
A few years back, Annie and I were in a grocery store picking up a few things for the week’s meals. But one thing that stopped me short while we were on our way to getting some kind of vegetable or other was a pallet of soft drinks. Well, one particular kind of soft drink. Sun Drop. Now, I don’t know how many of y’all have had Sun Drop, but I was genuinely surprised to find it outside of the South. And this might sound weird to some, but Sun Drop has a special place in my heart. See, my grandma had this cabinet. It was six foot high cabinet (which is hilarious because she wasn’t even five feet tall with her hair) that was filled, top to bottom, with exactly two varieties of soft drink: Cheerwine (which I’m certain y’all have never heard of) and Sun Drop. And to this day, if I catch a whiff of the sugary lemon-lime carbonation that is Sun Drop’s scent, I am immediately transported back to my grandma’s kitchen. Scent and memory are tied together. March 27, 2022
When we experience some kind of big or momentous change as human beings, we like to mark it in some way: a party, a ceremony, even a moment that acknowledges the transition that’s happening. We do it every single year on New Year’s Eve with a big party. And in a couple short months, many of us will be marking the transition out of school with graduation. Opening up a new business or starting a new construction project often has some kind of ribbon-cutting ceremony! We celebrate the transition from one life to the next when we come together for a baptism, the ritual washing away of the old sinful person and the birth of a new child of God. And we also mark the not-so-happy transitions in life as well with some kind of acknowledgment. The bittersweet moment of moving to a new place might be marked with a get-together. A bad year and a closing business has a gathering to mourn and remember what happened. And of course we mark the death of a loved one with a funeral—a time when we remember who they were and talk about the hope we have. We mark these transitions with rituals, ceremonies, some kind of remembrance. March 20, 2022
One of the things I was taught way back in elementary school math class was this peculiar rule about shapes. A square is nothing more than a rectangle with all sides being equal. So, technically speaking, all squares are rectangles. However, and this was an important part of the lesson, not all rectangles are squares. It’s an extremely basic concept and somehow it perfectly fits the lesson Jesus teaches in the first half of our gospel reading this morning. Come with me on this. We hear about these two awful, tragic events—first, about some Galileans who were murdered on the orders of Pilate, possibly during worship since their blood mingled with sacrifices; and second, some Jerusalemites who were crushed by a collapsing tower. The senselessness of tragedy has always been something we as human beings have tried desperately to apply some kind of sense to. We need a reason. When bad things happen, why do they happen? The explanation Jesus was confronting—an explanation that, by the way, is still far too prevalent today—is that God was punishing these people for some kind of sin they committed. If bad things happen to you, it must mean that you sinned. But not all rectangles are squares. |
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