2013

 Sermons

Dez 29 - Never "back to normal"

Dez 29 - Remember!

Dez 24 - The Great Exchange

Dez 22 - Embarrassed by the Great Offense

Dez 19 - Suitable for its time

Dez 15 - Patience?

Dez 13 - The Life of the Servant of Christ Jesus

Dez 8 - Is "hope" the right word?

Dez 1 - In God's Good Time

Nov 24 - Prophet, Priest, and King

Nov 17 - On that Day

Nov 10 - Persistent Hope

Nov 3 - To sing the forever song

Nov 3 - Witness of all the saints

Okt 27 - Is there some other Gospel?

Okt 25 - With a voice of singing

Okt 20 - Are you a consecrated disciple?

Okt 13 - No Escape?

Sep 22 - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Sep 15 - Good News in Every Corner

Sep 8 - The Cost of Discipleship

Sep 1 - For Ourselves, or for God?

Aug 25 - Who, Me?

Aug 18 - The Cloud of Witnesses

Aug 11 - Eschatology and Ethics

Aug 4 - Possessed

Jul 29 - How long a sermon, how long a prayer?

Jul 21 - Hospitality, and then...

Jul 14 - Held Together

Jul 14 - Disciple or Admirer?

Jul 7 - Go, fish!

Jun 9 - Two Processions

Jun 2 - Inside or Outside?

Mai 30 - On the Way

Mai 26 - What kind of God?

Mai 19 - Come Down, Holy Spirit

Mai 18 - Good Gifts of God

Mai 14 - Not Zero!

Mai 12 - Glory?

Mai 5 - Finding or being found?

Apr 28 - A Heavenly Vision

Apr 21 - Our small acts and Christ's resurrection

Apr 14 - Transformed!

Apr 7 - Give God the Glory

Mrz 31 - Refocused Sight

Mrz 30 - Walls

Mrz 29 - It was Night

Mrz 29 - Today, Paradise

Mrz 28 - To Show God's Love

Mrz 24 - Bridging the Distance

Mrz 17 - The Extravagance of God's Actions

Mrz 10 - Foolish Message or Foolish People?

Mrz 3 - What about you?

Feb 24 - Holy Promises

Feb 18 - God's Word by the Prophet

Feb 17 - Tempted by whom?

Feb 13 - On a New Basis

Feb 10 - On Not Managing God

Feb 3 - Who, me?

Jan 27 - Fulfilled in your hearing

Jan 20 - Where Jesus Is, the Old becomes New

Jan 13 - Called by Name

Jan 6 - Three antagonists, three places, three gifts

Jan 4 - The Teacher

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Have any of you ever been to Narnia?

      I love the way CS Lewis writes these child’s fantasy books that inspire adults

In the first story the children who fell through a wardrobe into this magical land hear of a Lion named Aslan

      So they ask whether this lion is safe and Mr. Beaver answers:

            “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe?

Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

We have some strange and even frightening lessons this morning

      Jacob the original con-artist, thief, and embezzler running away from Uncle Laban.

            But the only option is to run toward his brother Esau who last threatened to kill him if they ever met

 

In our fairy-tale world of religion we would want an angel to show up with comforting words for Jacob

      The opposite happens: at night Jacob is assaulted by a divine being who wrestles with him until morning

            And in the end Jacob will forever walk with a limp but also he goes forward with God’s blessing

 

And so often we want prayer to be this weak, wimpy form of religious magic that gets us what we want

      But our Lord tells the story of a widow constantly nagging an unjust judge (possibly a true story)

            And this becomes a source of comfort to us who often feel our prayers are being ignored

 

The Lion of Judah is not a tame lion. He is not safe. But he is good

      So often we would exchange the good for the safe, but God loves us too much to let us get away with it

 

The real God is a holy terror, as Jacob discovered that dark night

      And if his ways seem strange and threatening

            We know this God most fully on the cross where our Lion of Judah died for us

            Just as in Narnia, Aslan would sacrifice himself for the traitor and defeat the winter of evil

 

And so we come to Consecration Sunday (I’ll bet you wondered if I would ever get there)

      Consecration Sunday is not just a way to shame you into putting more money into the offering plate

            although I hope many of you decide to do that

 

Consecration is not first about money and certainly not first about the money we give to the church

      It is that lesson God tried to teach Jacob at the fords of the Jabbok and the disciples about prayer

            It is also what Mr. Beaver tried to explain to the children in Narnia

 

If you want a safe God, I have bad news for you:

      The only God there is, is not safe — he loves you ferociously and is not afraid to attack you to save you

 

But if you want a good God, then I will point you to the cross and resurrection of Jesus

      This Jesus who totally consecrated himself for us will accept nothing less than total consecration to him

 

I was blessed last week to hear a powerful set of presentations on stewardship

      And the question they kept raising is: are you all in for Jesus?

            Is Jesus the focus of your life, or an asterisk

            Do you want St. Mark’s to be your basic training for war against sin, death, and the devil

                  Or are you more interested in a Sunday Dr. Phil session to make you feel a little safer?

 

While we may talk about consecration, is that more than an annual catchword for fundraising?

      Consecration means simply: Are you all in for Jesus?

            If so, what have you left behind to follow Jesus? (disciples left nets; Elisha sacrificed oxen)

 

The problem in North American churches is that while our hearts want to follow Jesus

      our lives are aligned around other things (and there are many wonderful things beckoning us)

 

All people are generous — every one of you here this morning is generous

      The question is, generous toward what?

            Are we generous toward God and our neighbor, or generous toward ourselves?

 

Money is not a bad thing — it can be a wonderful tool for doing good

      or it can be a demonic power dominating our lives and ultimately destroying us

            And this can be as true of churches and other organizations as it is of individual Christians

 

The spiritual problem of money or property is when we think it is ours to do with as we please

      God owns everything; we are entrusted with temporary management of a little of it for a brief time

 

So having more money will not solve our financial problems

      What we believe about money solves our financial problems

 

The question for those who are truly consecrated is not, “how much am I supposed to give away?”

      But “how much do I need to keep so I am I free to give the rest away?” (Harry Wendt)

 

Consecration is not safe

      Jesus says that the only followers he wants are those who take up their cross and go where he goes

      Jesus calls us to die to ourselves in order to find the true life only he can give

 

Like Jacob and like that widow, God may sometimes seem to be our enemy

      But he attacks us out of love, to free us from our bondage to self and to the things of this world

 

Are you a consecrated disciple of the crucified and risen Lord? What have you left behind to follow him?

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.