Sermon: "Unlocking Salvation" (Easter Sunday), Matthew 28 (April 9, 2023)

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Christ is risen! [He is risen, indeed!]

I just had to get that out of the way up front. There’s a common anxiety among pastors that arises every single year – “What on EARTH can I say about this story that hasn’t been said before?” The prevailing wisdom, of course, is that we don’t HAVE to say something new; our job is to preach the good news as it’s been given to us, just as the women did on that first Easter morning so many years ago. So, again, I proclaim: Christ is risen! [He is risen, indeed!]

Prayer Cairn Revisited

Today was a beautiful day in Caldwell (60 degrees and sunny...sorry, Rochesterians!) so I decided to take a break from sermon writing and take care of a project I've been meaning to do for a while: neatening up the church's prayer cairn.

Sermon: "Rock of Ages: Resurrection", Isaiah 65:17-19, 23-25/Luke 24:1-12 (April 21, 2019--Easter Sunday)

(This sermon is the last in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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Over the past six weeks of Lent, we’ve explored all the different things that stones can teach us about our faith. We talked about the pitfalls of wanting to be in control and how fighting God’s sovereignty is like a softer stone trying to scratch a diamond. We discussed how God’s faithfulness doesn’t lift us up and away from our problems but keeps us going in the midst of them, like standing on a submerged rock to keep from drowning. We considered the stones NOT thrown—how we can build the kingdom of God here on earth if we choose to lay down our weapons and use them as building blocks, instead. We gave thanks that commitment to God can make us feel like we’ve come home, and we realized how important it is to surround ourselves with reminders of that commitment, whether in the form of massive stone monuments or in a holy meal or sacred font. On Palm Sunday, we were challenged by Jesus, as we considered whether WE might be the “stones” that he calls upon to shout out in witness to God. And on Maundy Thursday, we remembered that our brokenness doesn’t keep God from using us to build God’s kingdom—we can still be the rock upon which the Church is built, even when we feel deeply flawed and unworthy.

And finally, today we arrive at Jesus’ tomb with the women and see the stone rolled away. Today, the stone reminds us not of our struggles or our brokenness, but of resurrection. Thanks be to God!

Rock of Ages: Maundy Thursday 2019

For the last six weeks, our Lenten theme has been "Rock of Ages". One of the ways we explored this theme was by building a "Prayer Cairn" in the Narthex: people were invited to bring in stones from their homes, their sidewalks, the park, or wherever they found them and put them together in a pile. Each stone represented a particular prayer of the person who brought it in.

People got so creative with their rocks!

I had some stones available if folks forgot to bring theirs in, but I was impressed by how many people remembered, week after week. I also really enjoyed the fact that many people make a point to show me their stones before adding them to the cairn, saying, "Isn't this rock so cool?!?" Personally, I chose my stones based on what caught my eye as I was thinking about a person or situation. I feel like every time I had a prayer on my heart, there'd be a stone lying in the path right ahead of me. It was pretty incredible.

Sermon: "Rock of Ages: Our Brokenness", Numbers 20:2-12/Matthew 16:13-19 (April 18, 2019--Maundy Thursday)

(This sermon is the sixth in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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Have you ever felt like the world was broken?

I remember being a kid and believing that life was fair. It wasn’t an active conclusion that I arrived at; I just assumed that “fair” was the default setting of the world. That as long as you were honest, did your best, and worked hard, everything would always be okay. Jesus loves me, God is good, the world is fair—these are the “truths” that shaped my childhood.

But as I grew up, I began to better understand what really motivates humanity. Justice and mercy are not the universal standards that I once thought they were. People are often far more motivated by greed, self-interest, and fear than by compassion and care for others. Our leaders don’t always have our best interests at heart. Hard work doesn’t always lead to success. Kindness won’t guarantee that others treat me the same. The world that I see reflected around me now is a far cry from the world that I once believed God intended for us. Our world is profoundly, irreparably broken—WE’VE broken it—and it terrifies me.

Sermon: "Rock of Ages: Our Witness", Joshua 3:14-4:3, 20-24/Luke 19:28-40 (April 14, 2019)

(This sermon is the fifth in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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The verb “to witness” is an interesting one, in that it has two different (but related) meanings. When most of us hear it, we think first of the passive meaning of “witness”: to see, hear, or know by personal presence and perception.[1] “I witnessed an argument.” “She witnessed a crime.” “They witnessed a miracle.” In these instances, “to witness” means to be a passive bystander whose involvement is detached and exclusively internal (via your own observations).

Sermon: "Rock of Ages: Our Commitment", Genesis 28:10-22/1 Kings 5:1-6, 13, 17-18 (April 7, 2019)

(This sermon is the fourth in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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Let’s talk about home. You may have heard the phrase, “Home is where the heart is,” meaning that a person’s sense of home is tied to wherever they feel an emotional attachment. While a lovely sentiment, this can lead to some confusing conversations—just the other day, I was discussing vacation plans with my husband and I said, “So we’ll go home on Tuesday, spend a week with family in Rochester, and then we’ll come back home.” It took a full ten seconds of his confused expression for me to realize what I’d just said. Home, it seems, isn’t necessarily an easy thing to pin down.

Sermon: “Rock of Ages: God’s Mercy”, John 8:3-11/Jonah 3:10-4:11 (March 31, 2019)

(This sermon is the third in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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Today’s scripture readings come from two stories that we’ve all heard countless times before. Those of us who grew up in the church have been hearing the story of Jonah since our earliest days of Sunday School, and while children’s Bible storybooks don’t usually cover “The Woman Caught in Adultery” for some reason, it’s still one of those stories that most of us know by heart. They’re so familiar, in fact, that if we’re not careful, we might miss what they’re really trying to tell us, because they’ve turned into the mundane background noise of our faith. We assume we’ve already learned their lessons because we’ve heard them so many times before. But what if I were to reframe them, maybe give them a different ending? What might we learn from a story told in a way that isn’t familiar to us? Let’s find out…

Sermon: “Rock of Ages: God’s Faithfulness”, Psalm 40:1-12/Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-41 (March 24, 2019)

(This sermon is the second in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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In my pre-Lenten planning, I designated this week as the one for preaching about God’s faithfulness. My plan was, of course, to focus on God: how like a rock God is in God’s reliability and steadfastness. It was going to be a comforting, feel-good sermon. But of course, “best laid plans” and all that; as I was doing my preparation and study this week, I found my thoughts going in a different direction than I’d anticipated. You see, scripture contains more examples of God’s faithfulness than anyone could possibly hope for. But what might surprise you is that many of these references aren’t joyful proclamations erupting out of praise or thanksgiving; more often, these references to God’s faithfulness are made in the context of biblical lament.

Sermon: "Rock of Ages: God's Sovereignty", Luke 4:1-13/Job 38:1, 4-7, 33-38; 42:1-6 (March 10, 2019)

(This sermon is the first in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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I’m going to describe a scenario, and you let me know if any of it sounds familiar, okay? You wake up to the sound of an alarm because you don’t want the day to get away from you; maybe you panic because you’ve hit snooze too many times and you’re afraid you’ll be late for work. Of course, your coffee’s ready for you, since you planned ahead and set the automatic coffee maker last night. You start making breakfast, and you choose oatmeal because you want to make sure your cholesterol stays under control. Or maybe you choose the sugary-coated kids cereal because, darn it, no doctor’s going to dictate YOUR life! While you eat, you decide to watch something on the TV, but you turn on Netflix instead of cable TV because you want to be able to pause it if you need to. As you get dressed, you make sure to wear your lucky socks to ensure that your day goes smoothly. If you’re headed to work, you decide against the carpool, because you don’t want to risk Francis forgetting his report at home AGAIN and making the whole car turn back to get it. Or if you’re headed to the grocery store, you pick up what you need quickly and make a bee line for the self-checkout stand—you don’t want to deal with the clerk bagging your groceries wrong or get stuck behind the lady paying with a bag of pennies.