As I’ve said, today is All Saints Sunday. According to the New Testament, saints are followers of Jesus. They don’t have to qualify in special ways, but are garden variety followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth. Today’s lessons speak of how spiritual life, or following Jesus, is supposed to work out. There is to be a continuity between the worship we do “in here,” and the work we do “out there.” Many people think that it’s, sometimes, easier to see this in the Gospels and the New Testament than it is in the Old. After a lifetime of teaching the… Continue reading →

Here we are, almost at the end of October. Of course, here in the Midwest, the weather can be unpredictable, but this year, we’ve had a wonderful, warm autumn season to this point. So, I’m glad to think about Psalm 65 today, which is a public or community confession that it is God who gives the goodness we experience in life. It is good to be reminded that the Bible does not look at the world as “evil, fallen, nature” that exists apart from God, but as a good work of God done for human blessing. It is the very… Continue reading →

Today’s scripture texts are about perseverance. Perseverance for us may not seem a very exciting idea, nor very cheerful. There’s an old song that’s entitled “Keep on Keepin’ On,” and, in one sense, that’s perseverance. It can be just trudging along, putting one foot in front of another, day after day. And isn’t that the way our lives sometimes are? Our biblical texts add one further point: they encourage us, in one way or another, to put that one foot in front of another, and sometimes, painfully, slowly, “trudgingly” keep on keeping on in what we think is a right,… Continue reading →

I don’t suppose it will do to begin two sermons in a row by saying that the passages are hard and don’t seem to go together well, so, without denying that this is so, I will say, instead, that these passages, especially the Gospel, may easily be misunderstood. It seems to me that where the passages enter into dialogue is about how those who are called to faith in God (and the Gospel adds “in Jesus”) relate, at the same time, to their culture, which is a product of human design and effort. People of faith, through the millennia, have… Continue reading →

It seems that, of late, the Revised Common Lectionary is assigning very difficult passages. I am constantly surprised how many difficult things Jesus said. They do seem to make the life of discipleship hard.

I might also add, that at first sight, you may have wondered how the Old Testament lesson fits together with the two from the New Testament. Well, it does, sort of, but through the back door. One of the difficulties in the Book of Lamentations for many people today, is that it’s such a downer. All five of the poems that make it up are sad.… Continue reading →