In the Parish

Reading: Matthew 5:21-48 Jesus reframes the Law for the community gathered around him.  The Law becomes a positive force to live out God's intention in creation and in testifying to the coming of the Kingdom.

Reading: Matthew 5:13-20 Jesus' call sets us apart as salt for the earth.  Jesus creates and preserves our saltiness so that we might be a visible community upon which the Kingdom is built.

Reading: Matthew 5:1-12 The Beatitudes are not entrance requirements to the Kingdom, rather they are an image of Christ's church and Christ himself.

Readings: 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Matthew 4:12-23

Reading: John 1:29-42 John's proclamation of Jesus as the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" and Jesus' invitation to "come and see" opens up a life of learning to see the world as it is, good AND bad, and God's activity to transform it.

Readings: Psalm 29 Matthew 3:13-17 Jesus' appearance at the river Jordan to submit to a baptism he does not need is a sign of God's continued and relentless loyalty to the covenant he made with humanity.  God refuses to stand far off, instead identifying completely with humanity so that we might be transformed.

Reading: Matthew 2:1-12 Jesus' birth stirs up the powers of this world, both drawing them to him, and reacting against him.  The worldly powers do not take kindly to the announcement to their ultimate end.  The Herods of this world keep a tight grip on their power, a power corrupted by our fallen human nature.  This sermon was preached at a jointly held service between the Episcopalians and the Lutherans in Morgantown, WV.  St. Thomas a Beckett hosted this service.

Reading: John 1:1-18 Jesus Christ, the Word of God, becomes flesh and dwells among us.  This Word is the creative impulse seeking to transform our sinful world into a new creation.

Readings: Luke 2:1-20 Titus 2: 11-14 The birth of Jesus ends The Problem of Sin for all.

For Advent services this year, our theme has been "Jesus is the Answer! But what are the questions?" I asked people to submit questions that they had.  The first question I received was involved enough to take up two evenings.  A person asked about the rapture.  In the first session, I laid out what the rapture is since most Lutherans are unfamiliar with it.  In this session I lay out why Lutherans think this interpretation of scripture is mistaken.  The image that scripture gives us is resurrection not rapture.  Christ's return is about the transformation of the world and the faithful through resurrection.