audio by year 2008

With detail Matthew records the first dramatic action of Jesus' ministry - his baptism at the hands of John. Galilee was not a great place from which to hail. It housed too many different kinds of people with suspicious backgrounds to make it a prestigious address. Yet Matthew begins his baptismal narrative by reminding readers that Galilee was Jesus’ home - a fact that makes John’s confession all the more startling. Matthew 3:1-11 carefully presents John the Baptist as a serious, prophetic figure, his life and work foretold by Isaiah, his mission carried out with zeal and authority. John’s baptism wasn’t a nice, nurturing sacrament like we conduct for infants here at the font. John was confronting people at the river bank and dunking them to cleanse them of their sins.

Last week we celebrated all the babies born into our church family over the past year with a ritual of infant recognition. Following worship we held a very lively brunch for families with preschool age children. Forty-two people were in attendance and half were infants and toddlers! I inquired of one of the expectant couples whether they had a name picked out for their upcoming addition. The mom replied, “Well, we have some good ideas, but we’ll wait to see what the baby looks like when he was born.” Parents often wrestle with the whole naming process because it’s not just a description of outward appearance, but of a lifelong personal identity.

The season of Lent began this past week on Ash Wednesday, February 6th. If you think it’s early this year, it is. Because of the timing of Easter set by the vernal equinox and the lunar cycle, Lent is about as early as it gets! Our Sunday worship continues to develop our year long theme of “Finding Our Way” with the Lenten theme, “Looking Both Ways”. We’ll be looking both ways by focusing on common themes in both the Old Testament and New Testament readings each week. We’ll be looking both ways as we reflect back on the meaning of these ancient scriptures in their time and reflect forward on their meaning for our lives today.

Leonid Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and de facto ruler of the USSR from 1964 to his death in 1982. He served in that position longer than anyone other than Joseph Stalin. Brezhnev held the lid on underground religion and was a central figure in the Cold War conflict of power and values between East and West. Then Vice President George H.W. Bush represented the United States at the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev. Bush recalls being deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. Viktoria stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed.

The people of Israel successfully escaped slavery in the land of Egypt. In Exodus 17, they were in the wilderness and found themselves oppressed by new problems. The water supply dwindled and disappeared. Thirst quickly grew from a desire to a desperate need. The parched throats of the Israelites became the instruments for grumbling against Moses. “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and cattle in this arid desert?” What did Moses do? He called on God for help and from a rock that Moses struck, fresh drinking water began to flow. Their question, “Is the Lord among us or not?” was answered.

Snow White is a lot older than she looks! Versions of this fairy tale date all the way back to the Middle Ages. Around 1800, the Brothers Grimm gave us the story line we know today and of course the characters have been polished by the modern Disney machine. But consistent through the centuries has been the wicked stepmother’s vanity. Day after day she boldly, but with a hint of paranoia, stepped before her magic mirror to admire herself and ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” And every morning that magic mirror concurred with the fair queen that the image reflected upon it was in fact the most beautiful in the kingdom.

Night of the Living Dead is a black and white horror film directed by George Romero and first released back in 1968. The plot revolves around the mysterious reanimation of the dead and seven stranded characters trying to survive the night in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse. The movie begins with two bickering siblings Johnny and Barbra driving to a remote cemetery to place a wreath on their father’s grave. Johnny humorously teases his sister with the classic line, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra!” With that fun turns to fear for the rest of the film and none of the protagonists escape death with most turning into flesh eating zombies during the course of the night!

Back in the early 90’s our family lived in Brooklyn Park. We had a large garden in the back corner of a half acre lot with plenty of soft topsoil. One May day I was out tilling the garden and my youngest son Andy, who was about six at the time, wanted to help so I gave him a shovel to turn over some soil. He was so enamored with digging holes that he wanted to continue even after I was done cultivating. I left him to play with his older brother Matt who also got a shovel to dig around in the garden. I was pleased that they were so diligent about breaking up the remaining clumps of dirt.

When he died in April of 1976, Howard Hughes was the wealthiest man in the world. Even kind accounts of Hughes called him eccentric, and he was well known for his early film, Hell’s Angels. Not because the film was so great, and not even because of its introduction of Jean Harlow to the film world. He was known for the film because it took him 3 years to film it, and it cost $3.8 million. That’s in 1930. It was years before he made a profit. He had 84 planes, and the film involved lots of scenes of the planes in the air. With each viewing of the footage, though, he was unsatisfied. He wanted the viewer to be aware of how fast those planes were going, but against the clear California sky, they looked pretty, but not fast.

Polarized lenses are used in sunglasses to reduce glare from reflective surfaces such as the surface of a lake or the hood of a car or a concrete highway. They fulfill this function much like vertical blinds control sunlight through a window. Sunlight itself is not polarized - light from the sun will either be absorbed or polarized by the horizontal, diagonal or vertical surfaces it reflects off of. The problem this causes for activities like fishing and driving lies in the horizontal reflections off the water or car hood or road. Sunlight bounces off these horizontal surfaces, striking our eyes at a similar angle and creating strong glare. Polarized lenses have a laminated surface containing vertical stripes.

Kari Myers tells the story about a friend, an Episcopalian priest who was leading a tour of the Holy Land. He and his parishioners were bouncing along a lonely dirt road when their Palestinian driver slowed to a stop. A flock of sheep was blocking the road. Behind the sheep a man stood yelling and flogging them with a leather whip. He was trying to make them move on ahead. Dismayed, the priest commented to the driver, “This is contrary to everything I have ever read in the Bible about a shepherd. I thought a shepherd was supposed to lead and the sheep would follow.” The Arab driver smiled and said, “He’s not a shepherd. He’s the butcher!”

This text from the Gospel of John is used frequently in funerals and memorial services. The words are ones of comfort, especially v. 2 where Jesus tells his followers, “In God’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” It is part of a much larger section in John known as the “Farewell Discourse.” John has gathered with his followers, he has washed their feet, Judas has left them, but Jesus has not been arrested. For four chapters, Jesus talks to his disciples about what is to come, encourages them to continue his work, and offers them words of comfort, promise, and hope.

Jerry Maguire is a 1996 film starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Renée Zellweger. Jerry Maguire is an “end of his rope” sports agent representing Rod Tidwell, a wide receiver with baggage. Dorothy Boyd is a loyal support staff whom Maguire initially marries out of convenience. For what it’s worth, Entertainment Tonight recently ranked Jerry Maguire as the #1 date movie of all time, in part because of the memorable dialogue between Cruise and Zellweger where he concludes a lengthy romantic plea with the statement, “You complete me.” And Zellweger replies, “You had me at ‘hello’”

I hope you’ve noticed the wonderful banner in the lobby stairwell. It was created and progressively updated by our worship committee throughout the course of our program year since last September. Each symbol on the banner represents a worship season during which we’ve examined a facet of our year long worship theme, Finding Our Way. Today we close our Easter series entitled, “There Are No Dead Ends”.

We can grasp the Easter claim of “No Dead Ends” because the story of an empty tomb is a graphic reminder that we simply turn a page and the story of Jesus continues! Six weeks later on this Ascension Sunday however, the gospels all come to an abrupt end and the claim of “No Dead Ends” carries some baggage that’s necessary to acknowledge.

They never knew whether the blaze was an accident or arson, but back in 1708 the home of Samuel and Susanna Wesley started on fire while the family of eight children and one on the way were asleep. About 11 pm the parents awoke to flames and smoke and rushed to get their brood outdoors, but one was left behind. The sleepy in home nurse snatched baby Charles from his crib and called to little Jackie, just five years old, to follow. But Jack slept through her calls only to awaken to the confusion after all were down the staircase and out of sight. Disoriented and frightened, Jack made his way to the window of an upstairs room. There Samuel saw his son from the garden, plunged back into the house, but the stairs were an impassable inferno.

There is an old joke, so old that I have not seen it in a round of e-mails that I can remember. It goes like this:
There are only two things to worry about. Either you are healthy or you are sick. If you are healthy, there is nothing to worry about. If you are sick, there are only two things to worry about. Either you will get better or you’ll die. If you get better, there is nothing to worry about. If you die, there are only two things to worry about. Either you will go to heaven or go to hell. If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about. And if you go to hell, you’ll be having such a good time with all of your friends that there will be nothing to worry about.

A Resurrection People
You may be surprised that I chose this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans from today’s lectionary readings. Paul is not the most sympathetic character in the New Testament, and he often gets a bad rap in progressive theology circles. But I have gained some sympathy for Paul over the years, and I think that some of his writings are worth redeeming. Particularly in this case, where I happen to agree with the point he is trying to make.

When the church solidified what was in the Bible, they included 4 accounts of Jesus’ life. The four gospels had some similar stories and some widely divergent ones. But the church leaders were loathe to choose only one, recognizing that each had something important to say. I think they hoped that the legacy they would leave to us was a larger picture of the truth without getting bogged down in the exact details.