March 5, 2023
Lent 2A – George Yandell
Who said these words?
“There’s no place like home.” Dorothy in Wizard of Oz
“Home is where the heart is.” Pliny the Elder – (CE 23- 79), Como, Italy
“Home sweet home.” Irving Berlin in “America”
“Home is the where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Robert Frost
“I wish I were homeward bound.” Paul Simon
“You can’t go home again.” Thomas Wolfe
“The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” I wonder – if you and I had been Abram, Sara and Lot, would we have answered Yahweh and followed that command? Who was this God Yahweh anyway, to be giving them such instructions?
Abram had the same fondness for home we have, I’d imagine. And yet he left everything and followed his Lord’s whimsy. Yet we never hear of Abram wishing to go back home. He went so far from home to get to Canaan, it would be like us flying to Mars and burning the spaceship when we got there. His relationship with Yahweh was founded on a two-way covenant, and depended on trust supreme. Yahweh promised to make of Abram a great nation.
I want to do a thought experiment with you. Close your eyes, breathe deeply and picture your home. The place that’s more home for you than anywhere else. It could be your parents’ home when you were a child,
February 26, 2023
Lent 1A – George Yandell
What appears most senseless can often seem most meaningful of all. What of Matthew’s story that becomes the gospel for today? This story tells of an event that proves to be a major turning point in Jesus’ personal history. It is recorded in three of the gospels. What could seem more senseless than Jesus getting baptized? Theologians have argued about it for centuries. Who could need more vocational reassurance than Jesus, standing there dripping wet and hearing, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well-pleased?” How many of us have ever had that kind of certainty?
And what sense is there to this wilderness temptation thing? It’s a great and dramatic story out of which preachers get a lot of mileage, but for Jesus, how senseless can it get? Well, there’s this. Matthew says that it wasn’t Jesus’ idea after all, for as soon as he was baptized, “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” What sort of sense does that make? [The above two paragraphs adapted from Lane Denson’s sermon of 3/9/2003.]
The wilderness temptation is reminiscent of the trials of the wilderness wanderings of Israel, as well as the fasts of Moses and Elijah. During this time Jesus discerns the true meaning of the baptismal proclamation that he is the Son of God. Here the devil represents the role of the tempter rather than the personification of evil.
February 19, 2023
Last Sunday of Epiphany – Ted Hackett
This the second of a “mini-series” of Sermons on “Heaven, Hell, Death and Judgement”…
The so-called “Four Last Things” which all humans must face…
Last week we tackled two of them…Heaven and Hell…
I am sure all of you remember in exquisite detail all of that sermon…
I learned years and years ago not to ask students what I had said in the last lecture…
Because the blank looks caused me so much frustration…
It was not good for my self-esteem!
So, to review, I talked about Heaven and Hell…
I said that Hell was not Fire and Brimstone and Devils with pitchforks for eternity…
Hell was self-centered alienation which prevents people from being close with each other….from loving each other…
Prevents people from knowing and loving themselves…
Prevents us from knowing and loving God with all our hearts, souls and minds!
We were created to love…
So alienation is Hell!
But, I said, this Hellish alienation does not last forever …
God is infinitely patient…
God will last the selfish, unhappy sinner out.
Because…think about it…
One soul lost forever would mean God was not able to complete the divine creation…..
Like the Father of the Prodigal Son…
God would have lost a beloved child…Forever…
February 12, 2023
Epiphany 5A – Ted Hackett
Today is the 6th Sunday after Epiphany…
Believe it or not, Lent comes in two weeks…
And of course, Lent is a penitential season…
40 days in which we are counseled to
calm things down in our lives…
To do some looking at ourselves…
And ask questions about our lives.
Lent is a little like Advent…
Except that over the years Advent has been a season of what you might call : “Joy Creep”….
The wonderful warmth of Christmas…
Aided and abetted by commercial interests
Have made Advent part of Christmas.
We become like kids …
All waiting for Santa …
Putting up decorations..
Going to parties….
And I for one love it!
We wear blue instead of somber purple or sackcloth
We anticipate with glowing expectation…
Messiah is coming!
Sing out! Go tell it on the mountain!
And I, for one, love it!
But it was not always that way….
When Advent came into the Christian Year in the fifth century, Christmas was getting cranked up in
the West…
And it was a penitential season….
A time for looking at yourself…preparing,
Because it looked not only to Christ’s
birth….but his 2nd coming in judgement!….
Somber stuff!
The early Church was very aware of the end of the world…
Jewish rabbis talked about it…and finally Christians
condensed the Last Things at the end of the world into four…