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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
If you knew that it was getting close to your time to die, what words, what stories, what wisdom would you want to share with those around you?
It was just after Christmas - over ten years ago now - that my then 98-year-old grandmother had a pretty serious stroke and then a series of TIA’s (mini strokes). She was staying with my parents and during the weeks that followed there were plenty of deep, serious moments shared together but also plenty of humor - including my grandmother being convinced that she was now in a nursing home instead of at my parent’s house and commenting to many of us around her on “how nice it was of the nursing home to let your parents move in, too.”
And it was fascinating to observe the way in which my grandmother, as she was having these mini strokes, seemed to be traveling back in time, day by day, year by year, sharing stories familiar to many of us but also new ones, from earlier and earlier times in her life. The stories of what was most important. Stories my grandmother wanted us to hear about herself, and who she was, but it was clear that she also wanted us to know how these stories made up parts of who we were - and are – as well.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
This month’s Christian Century magazine includes a story of twelve-year old Julian, who told her father, a pastor, that “she couldn’t go forward with confirmation because she wasn’t sure she could promise to believe everything she was supposed to believe forever. Her father replied, “What you promise when you are confirmed is not that you will believe this forever. What you promise is that you will wrestle with the story of God forever.” (Christian Century, pg. 27, March 2023)
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
I read some years ago that the reason that the Church celebrates Palm/Passion Sunday - where we move from joyous hosannas quickly, abruptly to the cries of “crucify him” - all in one worship service; that the reason we cram all of this huge emotion and story into one worship service is because the Church saw how many folks didn’t get to all the worship services of Holy Week and wanted to make sure that before folks arrived to Easter, they also had a chance to encounter the passion - the willing suffering sacrifice of our Savior Jesus. I have no quarrels or qualms with this decision of the Church, but I do find myself wondering if this way of approaching Palm/Passion Sunday feeds into our human tendency to rush to get through our stories and lives, to cram things all into tight spaces and tighter timelines.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
How many times in a day are any of us interrupted? By alarms that wake us up and start the day, by the sounds of our phones going off for text messages, social media alerts, or even old-fashioned phone calls? By friends, family, teachers, news, world? There are all kinds of ways, really, that we are constantly being interrupted. But there is one type of interruption that I’m not sure we always notice: God’s attempts to interrupt our lives.
God’s interruptions – if the Holy Spirit can help us to notice them - to the norms of our lives and communities and world can take all different shapes and forms, and often involve healing and being sent to participate in Christ’s work of love-in-action.
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- Written by: Pastor Tobias
- Category: Sermons
(Get youth volunteers to pass bowls of water for a remembrance of baptism. Dip them in font and carry them out to folks, inviting them to make the sign of the cross on their foreheads)
Do you feel different? Remembering again God’s love through Christ that has set you free, that sets you free amidst all of the things that burden, distress, or challenge you? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m glad if you do…but remember that Christ’s work in us is often so deep that we can’t perceive it in the moment that it’s taking place. It’s only months, maybe even years or decades later that we might catch a glimpse, maybe begin to understand some of the ways in which God’s love upsets our lives in order to reset our lives for the better.
I wonder if Abram had an inkling at any point in his life that God was preparing him for something important that would only get started in his seventh decade of living. For it is Abram who is called by God and given a blessing so that he might travel forth to a new land. To do a new thing for God. An act of faith and love that we hear will help to bring God’s blessings to the earth. And as Abram sets forth, we hear that he is 75 years old. 75 years old!