Thankful Living with God at the Center

Matthew 6: 25-33

Roger Lynn

November 19, 2017

Thanksgiving Sunday

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

(click here for the video for the whole worship service - the sermon starts at 23:00)

We are regularly bombarded by messages of scarcity. “There is not enough – not enough food, not enough money, not enough oil, not enough safety, not enough love, not enough God. We are not enough – not smart enough, not strong enough, not attractive enough, not spiritual enough, not good enough.” Such messages hit us fast and hard and often from all sides – including even from inside ourselves. And to the extent that we believe these messages of scarcity we fall prey to one of the great falsehoods of our day. It simply is not true. We live in an abundant universe. We worship an abundant God. There is enough, and more than enough. We are enough, and more than enough.

Four days from now we will be celebrating Thanksgiving in this country. Beyond just the massive quantities of food and excessive hours of football, Thanksgiving has traditionally been a time set aside for reflection. It is an opportunity for us to bring our gratitude into the foreground of our consciousness so that it might color and shape the whole of our living, not just for a few hours on a Thursday afternoon in November, but from that moment forward into the rest of our days. We have a chance to ponder the presence in our lives of our family and friends, the roof over our heads and the food on our tables, the world we have to live in and the breath which fills our lungs. In the words of Maria von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” – we simply remember our favorite things.

Success Reinterpreted

Mark 10: 35-45

Roger Lynn

November 12, 2017

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

(click here for the video for the entire worship service - the sermon starts at 5:25)

How To Succeed . . . in business, in sports, in romance, in life. You name the specific topic and you will likely find at least one “How To Succeed” title listed on Amazon, not to mention a variety of week-end seminars and late-night infomercials. And if James and John had been alive today, they would have been the first in line for all of them. They had apparently been paying enough attention to grasp the age-old adage: “It’s not what you know - it’s who you know.” It’s all about making contacts. And they thought they had hit the jackpot! They were on a first name basis with God’s main man! The contacts just don’t get any better than that. And they weren’t about to pass up the opportunity to press their advantage. “Hey Jesus, can you do us a favor?” (You can almost see the arm around the shoulder.) “We’re looking to score big in the eternal life department, and we’re pretty sure you can get us the best seats in the house. How about it?”

The problem, of course, is that they apparently hadn’t been paying as much attention to Jesus as they had to the “How to succeed” paperback they’d picked up cheap at a garage sale somewhere. Because if they had, they would never have asked the question in the first place, or at least would have had some clue as to the answer Jesus was about to hand them. But as was so often the case with all of the disciples, they once again demonstrate a profound ability to miss the point completely. 

All Saints: We All Have a Place at the Table

Revelation 7: 9-12 & Matthew 5: 1-12

Roger Lynn

November 5, 2017

(CLICK HERE for the audio for this sermon)

(CLICK HERE for the video of the entire worship service - the sermon begins at about 16:40)

All Saints Day was this past Wednesday. I really appreciate this particular tradition in the life of the Church. It is so expansive and inclusive and abundant. In contrast to the ways in which we sometimes think of ourselves in terms of our limitations, or our isolation, or our inadequacy (in short, all the reasons why God wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t care about us), All Saints Day reminds us that we are all beloved of God, that we all have a place reserved just for us at God’s table, right next to all the rest of God’s beloved.