Three Sermons: Preparing the Nursery, A Very Herod Christmas, and Heart of Darkness

Okay, so it's obviously been a while since I've posted a sermon, and now I've got some catch-up to do. I won't waste your time with excuses. The following buffet of sermons has three Advent sermons, and each one focuses on a different person who acted as a forerunner to Jesus. First comes Mary, then Herod the Great, then Simeon and Anna.

"Preparing the Nursery"
Preached on December 2, 2007 at PLWC.
Reading: Isaiah 53:1-12; Luke 1:46-55
Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

"A Very Herod Christmas"
Preached on December 9, 2007 at PLWC.
Reading: Matthew 2:1-12, 16-18
Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

"Heart of Darkness"
Preached on December 16, 2007 at PLWC.
Reading: Isaiah 40:1-2, 9-11; Luke 2:22-38
Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Jesus the (fill in the blank)

Preached on November 25, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: 2 Samuel 7:8-16; John 19:17-19; Revelation 5:11-14

This week marks the end of the Christian church calendar, which means next week starts a new season of Advent. But this Sunday was Christ the King Sunday, so our sermon focused on how important it is to recognize that Christ really is the one true King.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

The First Thanksgiving

Preached on November 18, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Colossians 3:1-17

This Sunday we explored Thanksgiving and the Lord's Supper and discovered that thanks-giving is at the heart of the Eucharist.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

As Certain As Taxes

Preached on November 11, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Psalm 51:10-17; Leviticus 1:1-9; Isaiah 1:10-20; Hebrews 10:11-18; Luke 9:23-26

This Sunday was Veteran's Day, which got me thinking about sacrifice. Sacrifice in one form or another is part of life; you're going to sacrifice something sooner or later. Are you sacrificing the right things?

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

When Gideon Forgot His Fleece

Preached on October 21, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Judges 8:4-9, 22-27

While my last sermon focused on corporate "vision," this sermon has more to do with finding out God's will for an individual. If we want to know what God wants us to do, we need to be faithful to what he's already given us.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Maybe Jesus Forgot

Preached on October 7, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Exodus 19:1-6; 1 Peter 2:1-10

The priesthood of all believers is one of those key concepts in the church. The priesthood (broadly speaking) is conspicuous in its absence in the New Testament, because Jesus didn't ordain anyone or anoint anyone or anything like that to create a new priesthood. But because of what he was doing on a larger stage, we're all priests.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

How to Poke Yourself in the Eye

Preached on September 30, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Lamentations 2:5-9; Revelation 1:9-11; Proverbs 29:18

Carey and I and the members of our board of administration will be having a board retreat on October 8, so I've been thinking of things like long-term goals and plans and vision. I've been annoyed to see some leadership authors (mis)quote Proverbs 29:18 to suggest the importance of a church having a vision, so I did some digging to see just what sort of vision Proverbs had in mind. No surprise, but it's not the same sort of vision as you'd see in a vision statement for a business.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

The Meaning of Fear

Preached on September 19, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: 1 Kings 19:1-18

For this week's sermon we took a look at fear. How does God respond to our deep, genuine fears? Does he ignore them? Does he pat us on the head and assure us that everything is okay, so stop worrying? The story of Elijah's flight to Mount Horeb sheds some light on how, whom, and what we should fear.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Tiny Dynamite

Preached on September 9, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Isaiah 61:1-3; Philemon 4-16.

There are a few dusty, neglected corners of the Bible that can boggle our minds if only we'll give them the opportunity. Philemon hardly carries the prestige of a book like Isaiah or John, but what it lacks in stature it makes up in efficiency: in just a few brief words, Paul's letter to Philemon can shake our world.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Because Carey is awesome, that's why.

Carey and I took a few days' vacation at the beginning of August, partly for our anniversary and partly just to get a break. We went up to a bed and breakfast in Montour Falls, New York, not far from Watkin's Glen State Park, and while we were there we spent a day kayaking on Seneca Lake. Carey had never kayaked before, but, out of sheer awesomeness, she was paddling around the lake like a pro in no time.

Carey on Seneca Lake

There Will Be a Test

Preached on September 2, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Ezekiel 13:8-14; Matthew 7:24-27

The sounds of the siding being put on the parsonage last week coupled with the approach of Labor Day got me thinking about things work-related, so for our sermon this week we looked at badly-built walls in Ezekiel and sandy-foundationed houses in the Sermon on the Mount.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Picking Up Stones

Preached on August 26, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Joshua 3:1-3, 14-17, 4:1-7; Matthew 16:13-24

We decided to follow the theme of rocks in the Bible for this week, partly because everyone knows about rocks and partly because people in the Poconos especially know about rocks. This was a communion Sunday at PLWC, and so we saw how the Lord's Supper is both a memorial stone and a foundation for us.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Getting Out of the Fish's Belly

Preached on August 19, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Jonah 1:1-3, 3:1-10

Repentance is always a fitting topic for a sermon, and few books of the Bible give us a better commentary on repentance than Jonah. (Believe it or not, there is more to the book of Jonah than arguing about whether someone could survive in a fish's belly for three days.)

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Why Bother?

Preached on August 12, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Isaiah 38:1-6, 39:1-8; Luke 17:11-19

This was our first service of healing and prayer, so for our sermon this week we looked at some instances when people have sought healing for the wrong reasons. If we just want healings or blessings just for the sake of having the blessing itself, why bother? There are better reasons...

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

The Hard Way

Preached on August 5, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Matthew 5:1-11

This week we took a look at the Beatitudes, those familiar words from Jesus about who's blessed in the kingdom of God, and we learned from those words that grace is hard work.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

An Eye on the Joneses

Preached on July 29, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Amos 2:6-10; Matthew 25:31-40; Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-5:11

Continuing our theme of how people of grace should live, this week we saw that we shouldn't waste, but we should be extravagant.

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A String of Forks

Preached on July 22, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: 2 Samuel 15:10-14; Luke 15:11-32.

This week we began to look at what it means to be a person of grace, because grace characterizes the people of God. To start us out, we're learning from Absalom's mistakes as well as the example of the Prodigal Son's father.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Mixing Things Up

It's been a few weeks since I've gotten around to updating anything on here, so I've posted my latest sermon below and I thought I'd add a couple of photographs as well. First up is a shot from a guest photographer -- namely, Carey -- taken on a recent trip out to Boulder Field at Hickory Run State Park. The temptation is to post lots of pictures of my dog doing the odd things he does, but in the interest of quality I'll post only the cream of the crop.

Calvin on a Rock (courtesy of Carey Richards)

And next up, here's a shot of a yellow lily I took last night. And lest I be accused of just posting another stupid close-up of a flower, this one has a bug in it:

Green and Yellow

Inside the Walls

Preached on July 15, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Joshua 1:1-9; Isaiah 7:1-2, 10-16.

Last week was Vacation Bible School week at PLWC, so our sermon started by thinking about some of the things the kids learned during VBS. Specifically, we focused on what the Bible tells us about God is with us.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Surely, God, You Meant...

Preached on July 1, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Habakkuk 1:1-11; Romans 1:16-17

We're switching gears a little bit with this week's sermon. Theodicy is the technical term for the problem of evil; that is, the question of how a good, all-powerful God can allow evil things to happen, especially to good people. Many people are familiar with the story of Job, but there's another book in the Bible that deals with this problem -- the book of Habakkuk -- and Habakkuk has some pretty challenging things to say.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Sharks and Crayfish

Preached on June 24, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Galatians 5:13-25

The fruit of the Spirit is one of those topics that inevitably comes up in any extended discussion of the Holy Spirit, and so this week we looked at why Paul wrote a letter to the church at Galatia to tell them about this fruit.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Talking Clay

Preached on June 17, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Genesis 1:1-2; Isaiah 45:8-12

Continuing with our desire to know the Holy Spirit better, this week we're looking at what it means to call on the Spirit as our creator.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

A Dangerous Traveling Companion

Preached on June 10, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Ezekiel 2:1-7; Revelation 1:9-17a

Carey and I were on vacation last week, but this week's sermon picks up where we left off two weeks ago at Pentecost. We're continuing to preach about the Holy Spirit, and this week we see that he is not the cuddly bestower of happy emotions that he is too often made out to be.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Introducing...

I've attached the first blurry photographs of Calvin, our new dog. He is completely puppy, so much so that he somehow made his lunch explode all over my kitchen floor, then sat grinning in the midst of the rubble like a madman. But -- how shall I put it? -- an excess of energy must be expected in any healthy puppy, and so we'll be patient with him and keep training him. At a little over four months old, he certainly has some growing and learning to do, but he's already far better behaved than many grown-up dogs I've met.

Calvin

A dog, not a baby

Don't Throw It Away

Preached on May 27, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Exodus 19:1-8; Acts 2:1-13

Church holidays trump national holidays, so this Sunday we focused on Pentecost. Celebrating Pentecost is too often an afterthought in some churches, which is interesting since they wouldn't exist had the Spirit not come all those years ago. As we saw in this sermon, Pentecost actually goes much further back than the Pentecost described in Acts 2, and that helps us understand exactly what the Spirit was doing on that day in Jerusalem.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Cow at Shaker Village

I lack the finesse it takes to turn a cow into high art, but I still can't help liking this picture. This shot comes from Shaker Village near Harrodsburg, Kentucky, taken sometime last year when I was studying at Asbury.

Cow at Shaker Village

The Rest Is Coming

Preached on May 20, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: 2 Kings 2:5-14; Acts 1:3-11; Ephesians 1:13-14.

Last Thursday was the day in the Christian calendar set aside for remembering Jesus' ascension, and next Sunday is Pentecost, so today we focused on the transition between the two. Jesus is gone, but he sent us the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Spirit is the last of the major characteristics of the church that we're looking at during Eastertide, and it's one of the most important.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

The Dysfunctional Family of God

Preached on May 13, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: 1 Samuel 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:11-12, 5:1-5

It's Mother's Day, of course, and rather than preach a sermon about mothers like too many other preachers do -- I've actually heard hymns sung to mothers in some churches, believe it or not -- we decided to focus on the church as the family of God for this week. Family imagery is all over the place in the Bible, and Ephesians is no exception. Fortunately for us, God's family is no "ordinary" family.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Between the Head and the Feet

Preached at PLWC on May 6, 2007.

Reading: Ephesians 1:15-2:5, 6:10-18; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

Sorry it took me a while to post this sermon; last week got away from me. We celebrated communion together on the 6th, and so that seemed like an ideal time to talk about how the church is the body of Christ. It's a common enough way of describing the church, but when we push a little harder on what Paul is saying in Ephesians, we see that the church-as-body image is even deeper than it's usually given credit for.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Technically a hippeastrum, not an amaryllis

My mom loaned us one of her amaryllis bulbs to take care of for a few months, and shortly after she brought it to us, the thing took off like a beast unleashed. It almost immediately threw forth a flower stalk so fast that I could just about watch it grow. Fortunately, it was in fact a flower stalk, not a poison-tipped tentacle, and it recently started blooming:

Amaryllis

I'm sure it's considered very amateur in photography circles to keep taking close-ups of flowers, but a) I don't run in any photography circles, b) calling me an amateur would be a compliment considering my level of commitment to photography, and c) flowers are, by and large, pretty, so they're nice for taking pictures.

Mysteries and Solutions

Preached on April 29, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Genesis 32:22-30; Hosea 2:21-23; Ephesians 1:7-10, 3:2-6

Suffice it to say that Paul had some pretty profound things to say about what God did when he created the church. This week, we're looking at what it means when Paul says that the church is the revelation of God's wisdom.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Plan A

Preached on April 22, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Genesis 18:16-23; Ephesians 1:3-6

The book of Ephesians is a good place to begin if you want to learn more about what the church is supposed to do and be. We're going to spend the next few weeks working out of Ephesians, then, because it's important that we learn how we as a community are expected to live after Easter.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Life After Easter

Preached on April 15, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Isaiah 53:7-12; Matthew 28:16-20

This week's sermon is the beginning of a series of sermons where we try to cope with Easter. Things are different now than they were before Easter, and if we're living lives that don't show that difference, then we need to ask why we're not different.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Short on Explanations

Preached on Easter morning, April 8, 2007, at PLWC.

Reading: Luke 24:1-12; John 11:17-27, 45-46, 53

Last week was a busy one for sermons, since I got to preach for both Good Friday and Easter. For this Easter sermon I focused on the sheer audacity of Jesus' resurrection: we can theologize and debate and prevaricate and ignore all we want, but when it comes down to brass tacks, there's a guy who used to be dead who isn't dead anymore and hasn't died for the last two thousand years. What do we do with that?

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

No Surprises

Preached on Good Friday, April 6, 2007 at Our Lady of the Lake Roman Catholic Church in Pocono Pines, PA (Pocono Ecumenical Good Friday service).

Reading: Hebrews 10:16-25

I was privileged to be able to preach at Our Lady of the Lake RCC for Good Friday before a congregation of people assembled from four or five churches, an honor for which I was selected because I was the newest member of the ecumenical council. The service was centered on the Stations of the Cross, something of which us Protestants are mostly ignorant (to our loss). It was a great opportunity, not only because I enjoy preaching, but also because it was a chance to worship with fellow Christians of other congregations. We don't do enough of that, but that's a whole other diatribe...

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Spring Flowers

Spring seems to be giving serious thought to visiting the Poconos, so the crocuses are beginning to bloom...

Purple Crocuses

I've been quite pleased with some of the shots I've gotten with my little off-the-shelf Sony Cyber-Shot. It's definitely no D200, but it usually does what I need it to.

Christians and their liberty

I'm not sure why, but monthly issues of Jerry Falwell's National Liberty Journal have been showing up in the mailbox here at the parsonage ever since we moved in. If you're not familiar with NLJ, it's a newspaper published by Jerry Falwell and affiliated with Liberty University (which was founded by Falwell), and it makes no effort to hide its Christian evangelical fundamentalist position on the issues. It's an interesting read, regardless of your political persuasions, and glancing through some of the articles in this last issue got me thinking. If you're interested in the details, I'll let you track down the NLJ's website on your own, but what caught my attention was this:

-there are roughly thirty articles in this issue of the newspaper
-of those articles, at least five specifically involve Christians taking legal action against institutions (courts, schools, governments) with regard to the protection of their practice of Christianity
-one implicitly calls for a boycott of the forthcoming Presidential $1 coins, which have "In God We Trust" inscribed on the coin's edge rather than its face
-and one points out that the College of William and Mary suffered a withdrawal of $12 million in donations when it removed a cross from its chapel

Just to clarify, those five articles dealing with the legal action are in response to things like students being banned from washing each others' feet (a common Christian ritual) and a school removing language referring to God in its yearbook.

Setting the morality or legality of the actions of those institutions aside for the moment, I find myself wondering about the motivations of the people in those institutions. Are they doing these things, seemingly attacking Christianity and indeed Christians, because they're controlled by demonic forces? Or are they such staunch atheists that they want to destroy all religion? Or are they participants in a strong but minority agenda in our nation that seeks to tear down the body of Christ?

Or, just for the sake of argument, do they attack Christianity because they fear what they perceive as a rise in militant political Christian extremism -- not the sort that is going to resort to terrorism, but the sort that believes the American government exists as its tool for securing its beliefs in the nation at large?

Now, where would they get an idea like that? Why would they think Christians are the sort of people to pose a threat?

Could it be because some Christians resort to boycotts to get their way? Or take people to court when they think their rights are being stepped on? Or call on people to withdraw funding from things they don't like?

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.

If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.

A time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are the meek.

Blessed are the merciful.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you.

Whoever exalts himself or herself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself or herself will be exalted.

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you; if someone strikes you on one cheek, give him the other as well; if he takes your cloak, give him your tunic also.

"Vengeance is mine," says the Lord.

Hmmm.

Not an Everyday Party

Preached on April 1, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Deuteronomy 16:1, 5-8; Matthew 21:1-11

Sorry there wasn't a sermon posted last week, but Carey and I were out of town over the weekend. This Sunday, though, was Palm Sunday, so we're marking the beginning of our Holy Week celebrations with a sermon on the spiritual disciplines of worship and celebration.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Cats on Leashes

Preached on March 18, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Psalm 133, Romans 16:11-16, John 17:20-26

Fellowship might not seem like one of the obvious Christian disciplines, but the reality is that sometimes it takes some discipline for us to put up with each other. The community of the church is indispensable to the Christian life, though, and the work that God does in and through our church will be done in the context of that community.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

The Hands of God

Preached on March 11, 2007 at PLWC

Reading: Matthew 25:31-46; John 13:1-5

The discipline of service is the focus of our most recent sermon at PLWC. We're continuing to look at those classic Christian disciplines that will help us to discern how God is leading us, and wherever he takes us, service will probably be a part of what we're expected to do.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Review of When They Severed Earth From Sky

When They Severed Earth From Sky: How The Human Mind Shapes Myth, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber. Princeton University Press, 2004.

This is a pretty good one, folks. I became interested in myths and how they work when a friend gave me a copy of Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces for Christmas a few years ago, which, as I understand it, is something of a standard in the field. I thoroughly enjoyed Campbell, and he makes some excellent points, but I was never satisfied with his explanation of myths proceeding from some deep, psychological urge inherent within each human. I suspect that if Campbell had had the chance to read Barber & Barber, he would have been left muttering, "Wish I'd thought of that..."

As I understand it, those who study myths are constantly asking two questions: (1) Why are there myths all over the place and all throughout time? and (2) Why are so many of them so similar? Campbell answered this by appealing to psychology; we as humans are wired the same way, so myths are expressions of how our minds function. Barber & Barber, on the other hand, do a fine job of suggesting that many myths are in fact means of transmitting real data about real events from one generation to another through a predictable process of encoding. In other words, a volcano in the Pacific Northwest exploded a few thousand years ago, the people in the area at the time witnessed it, came up with an explanation for it, and passed it on as a story to their children to warn them not to go near the exploding mountain. This is, of course, an extreme simplification, but Barber & Barber go into detail explaining the hows and the whys of the transformation from event to myth.

Barber & Barber spend the first part of the book outlining their principles for how an event is processed by a witness, explained, encoded, transmitted, and, over time, fogged up so that nobody remembers what it was really about in the first place. There are certain very practical reasons, they argue, that myths turn out the way they do, and many of those reasons are rooted in the pre-literacy of the people telling the stories. If you don't have a system of writing, you can only transmit a certain amount of data over time (limited by peoples' memory), so the data you do transmit had better be a) worth remembering and b) entertaining enough to be memorable. They then give some examples of how these principles have worked by explaining the bases for various common myths (e.g. stellar deities, the spirit world, dragons, and the Prometheus myth).

While Barber & Barber provide ample evidence to support their assertions, there are of course a few areas where their argument does not persuade. The most noticeable of these is in chapter 10, where they posit that people tend to compress actions and stories so that, for example, if you have stories of a grandfather named John who slays a dragon and a grandson also named John who later slays a grue, over time people will attribute both the dragon-slaying and the grue-slaying to one guy named John. This explains, in part, why so many heroes (like Hercules) are credited with doing so many fantastic things: it's just easier to say that Hercules did all these things than it is to say that Hercules did most of them while Phil did one of the others. It also explains why, for example, the pre-Deluge people in the Bible are said to have lived for centuries: there were several generations of guys named Methuselah, and rather than remember just how many Methuselahs there were, people just compress them all into one guy who lived a really long time. In my mind, their argument is weak on this last point, since they seem to be relying only on (reasonable) speculation and not evidence. I think that there are other things going on in these stories of people like Methuselah, and I suspect that Barber & Barber might agree to some extent.

In spite of whatever flaws I might list, the book is mostly very readable (though the section on astronomy is a bit difficult due to our own unfamiliarity with the subject), and it provides some outstanding insights into the mindset of cultures that are very far removed from our own. The reality is that most of humanity has lived very close to nature, without a concept of reading or writing, and having only the stars to help them record the passage of the ages. Barber & Barber help us recapture some sense of that by showing that these myths are not the product of unintelligent or unenlightened people.

Noonday at Nighttime

Preached on March 4, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Matthew 6:16-18; Isaiah 58:1-11

Continuing our Lenten series at Pocono Lake, this week we looked at fasting. Fasting is not just for crazy old hermits; it's a powerful tool in the hands of God to combat a very old problem.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Wet ice

We seem to be having a warm spell in the Poconos, which resulted in some melting of the snow we've accumulated so far. I decided to play with the camera for a few minutes today, then, and this is the result:


Apparently I just like taking pictures of icicles. You've got to have a hobby, I guess.

The Tomb of Jesus

I hate to jump on the publicity bandwagon regarding the Talpiot "Lost Tomb of Jesus," but hopefully this is worthy of some attention. Of course, I'm a Christian minister, so you won't be surprised which side of the argument I'll come down on, but this goes beyond a matter of faith to good, old-fashioned evidence. And it shows just how ridiculous this whole thing is in the first place.

Since this affair came into the spotlight I've been hoping to get a look/picture/drawing of the inscriptions themselves, since those are the basis for the hullabaloo. A comment on Ken Schenck's blog finally directed me here, where you can download the original reports on the excavation and contents of the tomb. These reports include a drawing of the "Jesus son of Joseph" inscription, and this is what it looks like:


I am not an archaeologist, nor do I have a terminal degree in Semitic studies, but I know enough about inscriptions to know that the "Yeshua" part of the inscription (the scribbles on the right side) are almost completely illegible. The original report by L.Y. Rahmani includes a question mark by the Yeshua reading, and even that question mark is pretty generous. Now, if you're putting together a report for the purposes of cataloging the ossuary, I can understand why including a guess is better than leaving it blank, so I do not fault Rahmani. But using this inscription as the basis for a book and a Discovery Channel documentary is completely absurd. Most of the other inscriptions are reasonably clear, but they aren't the linchpin of the entire argument. (Incidentally, the "Mariamenou e Mara" interpretation is also rather garbled, in my opinion, but I'm willing to grant them that one.)

In other words, assuming that this drawing is a reasonably accurate representation of the actual inscription, the "Joseph" part of the inscription (the left third) is clear enough that I'll buy it. The "son of" part, "br" in an Aramaic inscription, is very unclear. I'll grant them the "r," and based on the standard "X son of Y" formula in Aramaic inscriptions, it makes sense to assume there's a "b" in there somewhere. That leaves us with the difficult task of finding "Yeshua," or "yshwa" (depending on how you transliterate) in the mess on the right. An ayin ("a"), maybe, but beyond that, I can't find any of the other letters.

Tabor, Cameron, Jacobivici, and friends should be ashamed of themselves. This is the worst kind of money-grubbing, controversy-milking sensationalism. They aren't scholars, they're ringmasters.

In the middle of the earth in the land of Shire...

I've had enough family members demand photos of where we live that I've finally gotten around to it. The picture quality is far from spectacular since it was snowing at the time, but I thought snow would be as picturesque as anything, at least until the leaves come back.

And so, I present to you the parsonage...

Front view

Another front view

Rear view

And yes, the building right beside us is the church building. It's nice to be able to walk to work without even having to put on a coat, but it also means there isn't much point in opening the blinds on that side of the house...

Don't Play With Fire

Preached on February 25, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Luke 18:10-17; Revelation 8:1-5

This Sunday was the first Sunday in Lent, and at Pocono Lake, we're taking this season to focus specifically on how we as a church can serve God better. We want to know how he wants us to enter into his work in the world. And since Carey and I are new to the church, that means we (as a church and as pastors) need to spend time intentionally seeking God. One way to do that is through prayer, which is the focus of this week's sermon. This sermon talks about how we pray and what happens when we pray. I'll give you a hint: prayer is not a chance for us to tell God what we want him to do.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Copyright information

It's taken me longer than I'd hoped, but I've finally updated the copyright information for the content of this site. There is now an icon and information for more details at the bottom of this page as well as at the end of every sermon, but it basically comes down to what I said before: don't take my stuff and call it your own, and don't make money off of me without asking first.

The official lingo is a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License, which means that you're free to use my stuff without asking provided you comply with the following stipulations: give credit where credit is due, don't use my stuff for commercial purposes, and don't change my stuff unless you're willing to put an identical license on the modified result.

It's really a shame that I have to go to all this trouble, especially since these stipulations are, in my mind, simply being polite, but such are the days in which we live.

What To Eat

Preached on February 18, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Exodus 16:1-4a; John 6:32-35, 41-60

This Sunday was our first celebration of the Lord's Supper since we arrived at Pocono Lake, so I decided to preach on Jesus' statement that he is the bread of life. His allusion to God's gift of manna in Exodus 16 isn't too hard to pick out, but why does he keep talking about chewing?

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Azatiwada and the Song of Deborah

Below I've included a link to a paper I wrote last year for a class I took at Asbury. I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, since it's fairly technical and I can't imagine anyone would be interested in reading it, but I suppose it's just possible that someone will someday find this paper in a Google search for research material and actually use it. The presenting reason I'm posting it, though, is because in my sermon titled "How to Go" I mentioned that in the ancient Near East, a ruler could be judged by the quality of the protection he or she offered on the roads under his or her control. That claim is actually based on research, believe it or not.

The paper in question compares some lines from the Song of Deborah with some claims made by a ruler named Azatiwada in an inscription bragging about how great he was. They're not explicitly connected in any way, of course, but they both make the assumption (or so I argue) that one standard way of judging a ruler's quality and right to brag is how well they take care of their roads. Nothing earth-shattering, I suppose, but it does shed some light on a variety of obscure passages throughout the Bible.

Click here to view this paper.

How To Go

Preached on February 11, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: John 13:31-14:7, Hebrews 10:19-25

When Jesus calls himself "The way, the truth, and the life," he means that he is the way that God promised us to bring us to himself. He's talking about us being adopted into God's family, and that changes everything.

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Where To Go

Preached on February 4, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Ezekiel 34:1-6, 17-19; John 10:7-18; 1 Peter 5:1-5

Jesus calls himself the "door" and the "good shepherd." Anyone who doesn't come through the door, he says, is a thief and a robber...

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How To Stay Alive

Preached on January 14, 2007 at PLWC.

Reading: Isaiah 5:1-7, John 15:1-11

Jesus calls himself the vine, and those who want to stay alive must be grafted into him. If he is our source of life, though, he also gives us what we need to bear fruit.

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How To See

Preached on January 7, 2007 at PLWC

Reading: John 8:12, 9:39-41

This is the first sermon in a series looking at Jesus' "I am..." statements in John's gospels, where he describes himself in terms of something else. In this sermon, we see that Jesus is the light that give our eyes, which are blind on their own and cannot see the God that created them, sight to see God.

Click here to view a manuscript of this sermon.

Some introductory remarks

My intent in this site is to give me a place to deposit sermons and such in case anyone is interested in reading them. I assume that I'll be including more content and variety down the road, but for now, I'm not sure what that will be. I also assume that most people who look at this site will be people who already know me and know how to contact me, but if you're not, then feel free to leave a comment on one of the posts and I'll be happy to get in touch with you. I certainly encourage feedback on anything I've posted.

I'll also be posting more on my copyright policy later, but for now, just don't take my stuff and call it your stuff, and don't make money off of my stuff without giving me some of it. I don't get too hung up on "intellectual property rights," whatever those are, since the things I preach are the product of countless other peoples' thoughts anyway.