Sermon: “God’s Co-Op”, Genesis 2:4-9a, 15, 18-22/Mark 4:26-32 (June 13, 2021)

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God’s kingdom has been compared to a lot of things. According to Jesus, the Kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field, a pearl of great price, yeast, a fishing net, a landowner hiring day laborers, a wedding banquet, servants entrusted with talents, and so on and so on. All revealing something important about God’s kingdom, and yet all (to our modern ears, anyway) rather enigmatic. (What actually *is* a talent, anyway?) If even the disciples struggled to extract meaning from these parables in their context, what hope do we have today?

A Modest Proposal for a New Edition of the Bible

How I wish scripture had a sarcasm font.

I'm reading through Mark 4 to internalize the context for this week's scripture reading, when I come to v. 11-12:
"[Jesus] said to [the disciples], “The secret of God’s kingdom has been given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables. This is so that they can look and see but have no insight, and they can hear but not understand. Otherwise, they might turn their lives around and be forgiven."

Sermon: “Making Room in God’s House” (a.k.a., "Invitangelism", "Think Bigger", or "The Parable of the Architect"), Isaiah 49:1, 4-6/Psalm 40:1-4/John 1:35-42 (January 19, 2020)

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A new parable: there once was an architect who needed to design and build a house for her own family. She, her spouse, and their two children had been displaced by a natural disaster a few years back, but the time had come for them to return to their hometown, to rebuild and start again. She was full of hope as she sat down at the drafting table, but as she considered everything that needed to go into this new house—her spouse wanted a large kitchen, her son wanted a bedroom with enough space for all of his toys while her daughter wanted one as far from her brother as possible, not to mention her own need for an at-home office—she began to become discouraged. She felt that after everything they’d been through, she didn’t have the strength to create a new home for her family, one that would meet all of their needs and help them feel safe and secure again. But, they needed somewhere to live, so she did the best she could, and they began construction.

Sermon: "The Runaway Bunny and God's Grace", Psalm 139:1-12/Luke 15:1-7, 11-19 (September 24, 2017)

9/24/17

Sermon video here.

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We read about Jesus’ teaching in parables all over the gospels. He does it so frequently that they’re some of the most beloved and well-known stories in the Bible. Unlike other parts of scripture, we aren’t expected to believe that these events actually happened, but this lack of historicity doesn’t take away from their value as scripture. In fact, a lot of their value lies in their being universally understandable and relatable to anyone who hears them. They depend on their audience being able to mentally put themselves into the story.