Seeing God: Look for the Love

John 14: 15-23

Roger Lynn

April 30, 2017

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Where do we find God? How do we “see” God? In John’s Gospel the lines begin to blur and the distinctions fall away. Who God is blends into who Jesus is, Jesus blends into who the Holy Spirit is, and ultimately the whole sacred package blends into who we are. In our reading for this morning we find Jesus saying, “I am in God, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20) How do we “see” God? Just look around! God is everywhere, if we have eyes to see.

Where Will God Find You? And Will You Notice?

Luke 24: 13-35

Roger Lynn

April 30, 2017

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

God is all around us all the time. And most of the time we don’t notice. We find this story played out over and over again in scripture. With very few exceptions, whenever folks encounter the risen Christ they don’t understand what they are experiencing. Mary thought she was meeting the gardener. Sometimes they think it’s a ghost. The disciples on the road to Emmaus saw only a fellow traveler. Most of the time we see what we expect to see and we don’t see what we don’t expect to see. And the sad truth is that much of the time we aren’t really expecting to encounter God in our everyday, ordinary lives. Which makes it ever so much more difficult for God to actually be encountered and experienced. 

New Life – Inexpressible Joy (Easter)

John 20: 1-18

Roger Lynn

April 16, 2017

Easter Sunday

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! It is the proclamation of Easter. It is a central proclamation of the Church. For hundreds of millions of people it is an important expression of what they believe. It has the potential to capture our imagination and shine a light of hope into the darkness and the gloom of a frightening world. It can serve us well.

It can serve us well – if we will remember that such a proclamation seeks to describe an experience. It is not the experience itself. In many ways our culture has left us rather poorly equipped to really experience faith and give expression to it, because we have lost an appreciation of poetry and metaphor. In this scientific age in which we live, something is perceived to be true if it can be proven by verifiable means. And if not, then it isn’t true, and thus isn’t worthy of our attention. I know that is an overly simplistic picture, but at some level it really is how we operate. There are so many debates which seem to be couched in black and white, either/or terms. Evolution versus creation. Faith versus reason. Science versus religion. We lose so much of the subtle, nuanced flavor of life and faith when we seek to approach things in such a manner. We get stuck in unhelpful arguments that lead us away from life instead of towards it.

Radical Welcome (Maundy Thursday)

Luke 22: 14-16

Roger Lynn

April 13, 2017

Maundy Thursday

“He took his place at the table, and the apostles with him.” (Luke 22:14) On the surface of things it seems like such a simple, straightforward statement. It was time for the meal and they all gathered around the table. But nothing about this meal was simple or straightforward. Those who came together in that upper room to share this meal did not know it (although Jesus probably suspected), but this would be the last meal they would eat together before their lives came completely unravelled with the brutal death of Jesus. Over and over again his followers had proved themselves surprisingly dense at understanding what was happening, so they were probably oblivious. Jesus, however, could almost certainly read the writing on the wall. And in the face of the gathering storm he chose not to run away and seek shelter, but rather to continue living his God-centered, God-filled life in the same way he had been living it all along. It was Passover. They were in Jerusalem. And what you did on Passover was share a meal with those closest to you. So he made arrangements to borrow a room and have the meal prepared. He invited his disciples to join him for an evening of food and fellowship. And he used the occasion to remind them that Sacred Presence can be experienced in every moment of life, including the darkest and most frightening times, through stuff as common and ordinary as a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. 

Living & Dying with God

Mark 11: 1-11 & Mark 15: 1-39

April  9, 2017

Roger Lynn

Palm / Passion Sunday

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Today we enter the final week in the season of Lent – often called “Holy Week.” It is a time when the Church pays particular attention to the final days of Jesus’ life, from the entry into Jerusalem to the last supper in the upper room, to the praying in the garden, to the arrest, to the execution, to the burial, to the resurrection. From the very beginning, those who have called themselves followers of Christ have sought to find meaning in these events. Each of the four Gospels contained in our New Testament offer their own unique perspective on what meaning can be found here, to say nothing of the countless theologians, scholars and ordinary folk down through the years. There has never been one single consensus on what this all means or even where to put the emphasis. Different people and different communities have lifted up different themes and reached different conclusions. One reminder of this reality came several years ago, with the announcement of the discovery of a third century document known as the Gospel of Judas – a Gnostic Gospel which portrays Judas as the most faithful of all the disciples. Exploring all of the implications of such a document would require considerably more time than we have available to us this morning. I mention it simply to point out that there are a wide variety of ways in which the life of Jesus can be understood. Meaning is not limited to one particular interpretation. Indeed, faith requires a certain degree of humility. I believe it is always healthy to follow up even our most ardent convictions with the confession that “then again, I could be wrong.”

Lost & Found

Jeremiah 31: 31-34 & John 12: 20-33

Roger Lynn

April 2, 2017

5th Sunday in Lent

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

“Lost and Found!” Every elementary school has one. Every church camp has one. Lots of churches have one. We all know about the lost and found. At one time or another most of us have had something in the lost and found, even if we didn’t know it. And sometimes it feels like life has left us in the box, knowing that we’re lost and wondering if anyone will ever find us. Lately it has felt as if the whole world were lost and waiting to be found. We know about lost and found.

Our faith tells us that God is in the business of finding us when we are lost. But the problem is, we’re not always very good at remembering that, and even when we do remember, we’re not always very good at maintaining the kind of relationship with God where we can appreciate being found. When the Psalmist writes, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Psalm 51: 10) we understand that longing. It is a clean heart which we need, because relating with God requires that we speak the language of the heart.