Sermons

Isaiah 64: 1-9 & Mark 13: 24-37 * Roger C. Lynn * November 27, 2005

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Today is the first Sunday in Advent - the advent of God's coming into the world with power - a time of watching and waiting and preparing. For thousands of years people have been longing for God to come among them and make a difference in their world. And we know about such desires. They are our desires as well.
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Psalm 65 & Luke 17: 11-19 * Roger C. Lynn * November 20, 2005

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This is the week when we in this country pull out all the stops and offer expressions of thanks amidst rituals of family, friends and food. At least on this one day of the year we pause to pay attention to that in our lives for which we can be grateful. And we celebrate with almost reckless abandon. The fact is that we live in an abundant world -- God’s abundant world. I cannot prove it, but I firmly believe it to be true. There is abundance all around us. Sometimes we experience it. Sometimes we don’t. But it is always true. I am convinced that one of the primary differences between experiencing it and not experiencing it has to do with paying attention.
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Matthew 25: 14-45 * Roger C. Lynn * November 13, 2005

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The 13th-century Sufi poet Hafiz begins one of his poems with these words:

Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living
In better conditions.
(from “Your Mother and my Mother” translation by Daniel Ladinsky)

And yet, how often we seem to find ourselves living in those cramped, dark, lonely places where fear leads us. Indeed, fear tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, offering us the very life we are so afraid will find us.
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Revelation 7: 7-17 & Matthew 5: 1-12 * Roger C. Lynn * November 6, 2005

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All Saints Day was this past Tuesday. I really appreciate this particular tradition in the life of the Church. It is so expansive and inclusive and abundant. In contrast to the ways in which we sometimes think of ourselves in terms of our limitations, or our isolation, or our inadequacy (in short, all the reasons why God wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t care about us), All Saints Day reminds us that we are all beloved of God, that we all have a place reserved just for us at God’s table, right next to all the rest of God’s beloved.
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