Archive for category: Sermons

Adam is Israel – August 29, 2021

Scripture: Genesis 3: 8-13a  “The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?!” (Genesis 3: 13a)

The story of Adam and Eve is neither a continuation of Genesis 1, nor another version of the creation of the cosmos. It is a different kind of story altogether. It shifts the focus of Genesis from the cosmos to Israel. Genesis 1 sets up the big picture of what kind of God Israel worships; Genesis 2–4 is a preview of Israel’s long journey in the Old Testament as a whole.  Adam and Eve’s failure to live the wise life is a miniature version of Israel’s repeated failures to do likewise.

Scripture: Genesis 50: 21 “Now, don’t be afraid. I will take care of you and your children.” So he put them at ease and spoke reassuringly to them.

Genesis takes us from creation to the doorstep of Israel’s slavery in Egypt, and tells this story by dividing the book, not into chapters and verse numberslike we see in the current editions of our Bibles, but into ten sections that begin ​”​“This is the account of [so and so.”​”​ This arrangement reminds us that Genesis is telling the beginning of Israel’s story. Genesis is not about the world as a whole, even if it includes a creation story. It is a story about Israel’s relationship with God that is marked by struggle (which is what ​”​“Israel”​”​ means) over the twin issues of people and land. It is the first book in a five part series we call the Pentateuch, or, The Torah.  Genesis is not a textbook or personal moral guide. Genesis is a story and should be read like one. It creates a different world for us and then invites us in, leaving aside our world, as all great stories do.

Scripture: Psalm 111  “The works of God’s hands are faithful and just.” (111:7)

One mode of poetry in the Psalms is all-out praise and thanksgiving, such as the one for today. We also find praise even in Psalms of lament and complaint because “God is good all the time and all the time God is good!” Life is not always good, but when we engage in gratitude, we remember the evidence of God at work in our lives and we remember that indeed, God is holding our lives, even now.

Where Can I Go? – July 18, 2021

Scripture: Psalm 139  “You have searched me and know me.” (139:1)

This week’s Psalm text brings home this message: we are in an intimate relationship with God. There is nowhere we go that God is not present–no state of our being that results in our being abandoned. God has knit us together, has woven us, knowing us from before our beginning. God, indeed, is holding our lives.

Scripture:  Psalm 72  “God delivers the needy when they call.” (72:12)

As we celebrate  Independence Day on this Sunday in 2021, we recognize, of course,  that we do not live in a land ruled by Kings, as the hearers of our first Psalm of this series did. Nevertheless, the petitions of the psalmist for justice, deliverance, defense of the poor and oppressed, and peace for all peoples is an undergirding theme of our faith. We are reminded that a just society is one that proclaims “these lives are precious” and worthy of protection. God, indeed, is holding our lives… and wants “liberty and justice for all.”