2016 Winter sermons

"Growing in Wisdom & Strength"

2016 Winter sermons

 

Jan. 3 - Psalm 147: 12-20 & Luke 2: 15-20, "Pondering"

 

Jan. 10 - Psalm 29 & Luke 2: 21, "Given by the Angel"

 

Jan. 17 - Psalm 36: 5-10 & Luke 2: 22-24, "Two Turtledoves"

 

Jan. 24 - Psalm 19 & Luke 2: 25-32, "Simeon the Righteous"

 

Jan. 31 - Psalm 71: 1-6 & Luke 2: 33-35, "A Sword Will Pierce Your Heart"

 

Feb. 7 - Psalm 99 & Luke 2: 36-40, "Anna & Hulda"

 

Feb. 10 - Ash Wednesday

 

Feb. 14 - First Sunday of Lent; Feb. 17, first Lenten dinner

 

Lenten theme: Health in mind, body, & spirit

Notes From My Knapsack 12-17-15

Notes From My Knapsack 12-17-15

Jeff Gill

 

Not Feeling It. Just Not Feeling It.

___

 

The crunch, crunch, crunch of leaves and twigs just made the silence all the more evident. And that was good.

 

Noise and racket and even music: leave it all behind. Arguments and decisions and that other kind of silence, that makes a house vibrate with anticipation of the next sound, stay down there.

 

He crunched along what may or may not have been a trail. Probably a deer path, he thought. There's enough of them, they probably pound the dirt down pretty well. Do kids even walk up here anymore? Are they out of their houses other than down to the bus stop? He kept walking, meandering up the wooded slope.

 

His house was not far away; in the opposite direction were more houses, traffic, the lights of business and offices just beyond. But this way was into the woods, up into hills where only the occasional crossing power line or aged sagging strands of barbed wire looked like a human touch.

 

Breathing hard, he turned around a sort of bend that opened up in front of him, and paused, hands on knees, bent at waist, gasping from unaccustomed exertion. Then he straightened up.

 

The light was fading fast from the sky. He was no outdoorsman, he'd have to head back to the block, the street, the house. There was no flashlight in his pocket, unless you counted that app on his phone. It seemed darker because that last little twist had taken him into a view where the slope before and the next hill beyond had no lights, no houses in view, no streetlights or security lamps around. Just the path, the trees, the land.

 

Even in the growing dimness, as his eyes adjusted, some human touches could be seen. A log, cut on both ends, lay alongside the trail. He sat down on it.

 

His breath was faintly visible. He felt as if his thoughts should be, too, like a swarm of bees around his head. But as his breathing slowed, so did the buzzing. Looking up, a star swam at him out of the darkening blue. He stood back up, walking a few steps over to see a wider swath above, and enjoyed seeing another, and another twinkle into being, where before had just been sky. Slowly, as he sat back down, rustling returned to the forest behind him and across the path in the trees beyond; birds hopping in the low brush, squirrels or something else small dashing along branches just above his head. Then without a sound two cardinals floated onto the limb in front of him, their redness barely distinct by dusk, but the sharp-edged outline of their tufted heads marking them as clearly as crimson by daylight.

 

This walk had started because he just wasn't feeling it. Early December had been warm, even rain-spattered; the weeks were filled with extra year-end tasks at work and at home; family worries weren't lifting, but intensifying. Christmas lights and holiday parties just deepened his gloom. He wasn't feeling it.

 

It was time to go home. The tree was up, after all, and cookies had been made, his neighbor had nice lights up even if he just had a few strings around the front door. The last thing he wanted to do was make anyone worry about him; as he thought that, he automatically checked his phone.

 

There was a text from a friend at work. "Sorry you missed the party, hope you okay, merry Xmas!" Well, nice. With one thumb as he started back down the path he searched for that smiley face with a Santa hat. Just to say "I'm fine, thanks for asking."

 

And suddenly, he was feeling it. Who knows, it might yet snow. It won't be picture book perfect this year, but it's going in the books one way or another, so let's enjoy what we can, he thought. Like this walk, one step at a time.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

 

Faith Works 12-12-15

Faith Works 12-12-15

Jeff Gill

 

A performance of sorts

___

 

"Why go to church?" is a question I think worth asking, at this time of year when more visitors pop in than any other point in the calendar.

 

Why do visitors show up when they've not been around the rest of the year, and what should those of us who attend divine services regularly think about their motivations, and our own.

 

And we really should think intentionally about our own intentions if we're to relate to, and sympathetically understand what it is that visitors are looking for when they come through the doors of a church or worship center of any sort.

 

A few weeks back, we talked here about what it means to believe in, and to participate in a sacramental reality: there is a level, a dimension, a place in the cosmos for connections between the everyday and the infinite. If you believe that the acts of a faith tradition make that connection, and you hunger for such a connection yourself, you might reasonably go to a church service. For communion, out of a relationship formed through baptism, or any of the other events that some belief systems call a "sacramental act."

 

Then there's simply the desire to connect with someone else, to belong in a community of people and not just to wander about as an isolated individual. The Christmas season is a time when many of us simultaneously are looking for a community to belong to, and an escape from the crowd at large, the faceless nameless mob clogging the aisles and highways and now even the internet. When you have a sense of belonging in a congregation, paradoxically you can also go there to feel like you are more at home with yourself, as a silent worshiper in the midst of many others.

 

But this last note on "going to church" relates to something I've had a personal chance to spend lots of time on lately: concerts. My son is a senior in high school, he's a proficient musician in a number of contexts, and this is a time of year when the regular concerts and special events come thick and fast for bands and choirs and ensembles. Rehearsals aplenty, and performances left and right, near and far. Let's just say I've gotten to know the relative leg room of most of central Ohio's public spaces in the last few holiday seasons.

 

Worship is not a concert. But it includes many elements of the same. In the same way, church services are not performances, but the overlap is unmistakable. There can be backwash, in fact, and good worship leaders are mindful of that hazard. A soloist in a praise band can forget that Sunday is not American Idolatry or The Holy Voice, but a time for all to worship, and you have a role to play.

 

Kierkegaard helpfully noted that, to him, worship is indeed a performance . . . with an audience of One. The folks up front, clergy and musicians and choir or soloists, we're all more like the stage managers. And the ones giving a performance, in the best sense of offering yourself to the audience by giving your best, are the worshipers.

 

But it's God who is the true audience for worship. And it's to God that we come, when we go to church. God may be anywhere, I'd never doubt that for a minute, but it's also true that I can hear music in many forms, and at many venues, but I know where I want to be to hear that music reach me most directly. It won't be through earbuds, probably not on a screen, and it won't necessarily be in the glossiest of live presentations: it's when I have a stake in the performers, a sense of the time and work they've put in, and then the entire package speaks to me in mind, body, and spirit.

 

I'm sure there are better concerts for particular pieces of music than some I've heard in high school auditoriums or from local stages. But that sense of connection, along with a very real belief that it's in community that a sense of the sacred can open up the doors of my heart, is why the songs and hymns and anthems and tunes played in my presence, by those who care about the same lasting hopes and dreams I have, are where I want to be. It's part of what gets me to church each Sunday, and a variety of other places each week where arts and music and drama reach out beyond mere performance, and become something more.

 

See you in church – maybe even in a church building!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's got a song in his heart but knows it's better if someone else sings it out loud for him. Tell him about your love of worship at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.