Beyond the Fear & Trembling: New Life! (Easter)

Isaiah 25: 6-8 & Mark 16: 1-8

Roger Lynn

March 27, 2016

Easter Sunday

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

The story gets told a lot of different ways. The cast of characters varies. Sometimes there is one woman. Sometimes there are several. Sometimes there is one angel. Sometimes there are two. Sometimes Jesus says, “Don’t touch me.” Sometimes he sits down and has breakfast. But underneath all of the variations, which are really just different ways of telling the story, the central theme remains constant and strong. Resurrection! New Life! The good news of the Gospel is that God is here, now, in the very midst of us, and wherever God is there is life - abundant, transformed, new!

It is the Easter message, and it needs to be shouted from the rooftops and proclaimed in as many ways as we can think to tell the story. And, it needs to be acknowledged at the outset that when we take such a reality seriously it can be totally overwhelming and unnerving. Those of us who have spent our lives in the Church have heard the story so many times that we often stop really hearing it. We forget that such news turns everything the world tells us about life and death upside down. We forget that if we give ourselves over to this reality, nothing will ever be the same again. It is bigger than we are. It is most definitely not within our control. This may be good news, but it most certainly isn’t safe news.

Maundy Thursday Monologues

March 24, 2016

written by Roger Lynn

The setting is the Upper Room. The time is late in the evening, after Jesus’ arrest. One by one these people who have been close to Jesus find their way back to this place to reflect on what has just happened.

Exploring the Wilderness of Noise & Silence

Mark 11: 1-11 & John 19: 25b-30

Roger Lynn

March 20, 2016

Palm / Passion Sunday

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

~ Following the Mark Reading ~

If you had been a part of this scene, how might the noise and excitement have enhanced your experience of God? How might it have distracted you from experiencing God?

~ Following the John Reading ~

Where in this experience might Jesus have experienced God’s presence? What might have made it more challenging for him to experience God? 

~ Meditation on Noise & Silence ~

During this season of Lent we have been exploring the theme of wilderness - those times in life when danger and challenge seem to wait around every corner, and yet also when the presence of the Spirit can surprise us. We can easily get lost in the wilderness, but we can also be found there. It is the ‘wild’ places in our lives, outside of our normal, predictable routines. We tend to look at wilderness experiences in terms of the dangers and the ways in which we are uncomfortable. But what makes them remarkable are the ways in which new possibilities emerge when we can let go of our fear. 

So it is with the twin themes for this week - noise and silence. Both experiences can be uncomfortable for us, and both present plenty of ways for us to get lost. At the same time, both also offer opportunities for insight and growth and new understanding. Discovering such opportunities, however, requires that we be intentional about how we pay attention in the midst of our living.

Exploring the Wilderness of Death

John 11: 32-44 & Ezekiel 37: 1-14

Roger Lynn

March 13, 2016

5th Sunday in Lent

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Here we are again - right in the middle of the wilderness, which has been a recurring theme in this season of Lent. This time it takes the form of a vision. The prophet Ezekiel finds himself in a desolate valley filled with bones. And not just any bones - these are dried up and scattered. In describing his vision, Ezekiel uses dramatic language to make sure we get the point that these are really dead. Not “just stopped breathing 30 seconds ago but a little CPR will take care of things” dead, but dead “beyond any hope of recovery” dead. God asks Ezekiel if the bones can live again, to which Ezekiel replies, “Oh Lord, you know.” In other words, “it sure doesn’t look like it to me.” The story of the raising of Lazarus in John’s Gospel is really a variation on this same theme. The story-teller makes sure we know that Lazarus is beyond hope of reviving. “There is a stench,” is how Martha described the situation. “He’s been dead four days. You might have been able to do something then, but now it’s too late.” There is a hopelessness being addressed in both of these stories - death not just of the body but of the spirit as well. And that, finally, is what these stories are all about - the debilitating paralysis which comes when we lose hope, when we start to believe that what we see is all there is, when we forget to remember God’s presence.  And so we come at last to this final wilderness - the wilderness of death.

Coming Home With Shouts Of Joy

Isaiah 43: 16-21 & Psalm 126

Roger Lynn

March 6, 2016

4th Sunday in Lent

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

The people of Israel had been languishing in exile in a foreign land. Sometimes it seemed as if they would never find a way to go home. They were trapped in a life that was dark and oppressive and threatened to leave them forever cut off from everything which gave meaning to their lives. At times it even seemed that they were cut off from God. And it was into the wilderness of those hopeless circumstances, so filled with frightening and disheartening shadows, that the prophet Isaiah dared to speak a word of hope. Appearances-to-the-contrary-not-withstanding, God had neither forgotten nor abandoned them. Indeed, God was calling them home. The lifeless wilderness which stood between them and their dreams, a wilderness both real and metaphorical, could not and would not prevent the flow of God’s creative love. But for them to find that path, to experience that holy homecoming, the people had to look ahead rather than behind. God is always calling us forward into a bright and marvelous future. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19) 

How often do we find ourselves in similar circumstances? We feel lost and in exile - cut off from our sense of home, cut off from our sense of self. The road grows dark and frightening and we begin to despair of ever finding our way again. Perhaps this is only a momentary rough spot in an otherwise centered and purposeful life - an unexpected diagnosis of disease, an accident, relationship distress. Or perhaps it is an ongoing struggle with no end in sight - chronic pain, mental health issues, intense loneliness. But whether short-term or extended, seemingly minor disturbance or serious life-crisis, we become overwhelmed and we lose perspective and hope. We long to find our way home, but we aren’t entirely sure where to look or even what we are looking for. We only know that there is a deep longing, an emptiness crying out to be filled, an ache for something deeper, richer, fuller than anything we have ever known. And then, just when we are tempted to think that the dream will never be realized, that our lives will always be broken and never be whole, we catch a hint of something echoing down through the years and across all the wilderness miles between then and now - God’s message to the people of Israel living in Babylonian exile can still be heard. “I am about to do a new thing . . . do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19) If we will remember to look up from whatever it is that has us stuck, even if just for a moment, we might discover that God is already at work preparing a new path which will take us home.