Hope Does Not Disappoint Us
Hope Does Not Disappoint Us
by Adam Thomas
it has been about nine months since I preached a sermon about hope, so I think we’re due for one today. Hope is one of those slippery theological concepts because true, enduring hope differs from the more common Pollyanna-ish, reality-defying hope. But since we more often encounter the Pollyanna-ish hope, such a watered down version of hope tends to creep to the forefront of our minds. St. Paul, however, describes a much more hard-won hope, one that begins in suffering. And that’s the hope we’re going to talk about today. Also, a little bit of Calvin and Hobbes, but we’ll get to that in a minute or two.
How Old is God? (and other questions)
How Old is God? (and other questions)
by Adam Thomas
Today is our Youth Sunday at St. Mark’s, and to celebrate we invited the Godly Play kids to ask me any questions they desired. We collected a list of twelve questions, ten of which are autobiographical in nature. We’ll run through those quickly. The last two are absolute theological doozies, so we’ll spend the bulk of this sermon tackling those two. Here we go with the first ten.
Grace, Love, Sharing
Grace, Love, Sharing
by Adam Thomas
At the end of his second letter to the church in Corinth, St. Paul writes these memorable words of blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” As we celebrate the Holy Trinity today, I’d like to focus on the three words that Paul associates with this fundamental truth of Creation: grace, love, and communion.
Collaborators
Collaborators
by Adam Thomas
One of the most powerful words in the English language is the first person plural pronoun “We.” That’s what we are going to talk about today on this day when celebrate the birth of the church and baptize a child into this wonderful part of God’s household. We’re going to talk about the power of collaboration and how our community of encouragement, togetherness, and mutual support is a prophetic enterprise in a world of increasing fracture and isolation.
Why Do We Need to Organize?
Why Do We Need to Organize?
by Adam Thomas
I didn’t preach yesterday, so for today’s post I decided to share with you what I said at the delegates’ assembly for the new faith-based community organization I have been a part of building for the last four years. This meeting, which happened about two weeks ago, included choosing of issues and choosing a name. We chose “SAIL,” which stands for the Southeast Alliance for Interfaith Leadership. I am so excited to help launch this organization publicly in the fall. I had the job at this meeting to talk about the “why” behind our organizing. Here’s what I said, written in partnership with our lead organizer Pat Speer.
Keep My Commandments
Keep My Commandments
by Adam Thomas
Today we are going to have a nuts and bolts sermon. After several sermons in a row with lots of ancient Greek and complex theology, this morning we’re taking a step back and looking at one of the fundamentals of our faith. Over the next ten minutes, we’re going to explore what Jesus commands us to do.
Today’s Gospel reading follows on directly from last week’s. Jesus is sharing what Bible scholars call the “Farewell Discourse,” which is Jesus’ long talk with his disciples before heading out to the garden where he will be arrested. The Farewell Discourse spans about 20% of the Gospel According to John and includes many of Jesus’ most famous sayings. One of them is this: Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
John 14:6
John 14:6
by Adam Thomas
Today we’re going to spend our entire sermon time talking about a single verse of the Gospel reading. John Chapter 14, Verse Six says: “Jesus said to [Thomas], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The first half of this verse is so beautiful and enlivening in its poetry. Then, to our modern ears, we hear the second half of the verse as terribly exclusive, as a complete barrier against anyone who is not Christian being able to gain access to God. So let’s wrestle with this verse this morning and see where we end up. We’ll start with the first half, this great “I Am” saying, and my hope is that the “I Am” statement will shine a new light on the second half of the verse.
Driven Out
John 14:6
by Adam Thomas
Today we’re going to spend our entire sermon time talking about a single verse of the Gospel reading. John Chapter 14, Verse Six says: “Jesus said to [Thomas], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The first half of this verse is so beautiful and enlivening in its poetry. Then, to our modern ears, we hear the second half of the verse as terribly exclusive, as a complete barrier against anyone who is not Christian being able to gain access to God. So let’s wrestle with this verse this morning and see where we end up. We’ll start with the first half, this great “I Am” saying, and my hope is that the “I Am” statement will shine a new light on the second half of the verse.
On His Way to Me
On His Way to Me
by Adam Thomas
The world is a heavy place right now. I know I have felt way more stress than normal weighing me down recently. When I feel like this, I recognize my need to pray more, to connect more closely to God, to be an active participant in my relationship with the One who is nearer to me than I am to myself. Throughout my adult life, whenever I have felt this need, I have reached for my guitar. Before the pandemic, I had not written a new song in several years. But during those first months of lockdown, I wrote six new songs. Writing those songs was the only way I could find to realign myself with God in the midst of such a strange and scary time.
Ten Things I Have Learned About Death & Grief
Ten Things I Have Learned About Death and Grief
by Adam Thomas
As I read today’s Gospel reading for the umpteenth time in my life, something new struck me. Ten of the disciples are together, locked in the house for fear of the authorities. They are together in their grief and confusion over the fact that Jesus’ mission ended with such violence and immediacy a few days before. What are they going to do now? How could it all have gone so wrong? The ten of them sit together, I imagine, staying silent for long periods of time interrupted by little bursts of conversation: trying to make sense, trying to comfort.
Then there’s Thomas. He’s the only one not with the others. He’s off somewhere by himself. I imagine Thomas walking the streets of Jerusalem, alone with his thoughts and his tears. He was the one ready to die with Jesus when they went to see Lazarus and his sisters. And then he ran off like everyone else. Unlike the others, Thomas is alone in his grief and confusion. Maybe also the jagged knife feeling of betrayal. He knows he cannot face the others right now. He needs to be alone.
The Light of the World
The Light of the World
by Adam Thomas
This sermon is about perspective, about aligning our worldviews in order to see by Jesus, the Light of the World. But before we talk about that, we have to do something I really don’t like doing in sermons. We have to critique the translation of the Bible we use for Sunday readings. Here are the verses we are going to look at today from the beginning of our Gospel lesson:
As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1-5)
The Light of the World
The Light of the World
by Adam Thomas
This sermon is about perspective, about aligning our worldviews in order to see by Jesus, the Light of the World. But before we talk about that, we have to do something I really don’t like doing in sermons. We have to critique the translation of the Bible we use for Sunday readings. Here are the verses we are going to look at today from the beginning of our Gospel lesson:
As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1-5)
Done and Left Undone
Done and Left Undone
by Adam Thomas
Today, on this first Sunday in Lent, I’m going to talk with you about sin. “Sin” is very much a “church” word, a word that we use liturgically in our Confession of Sin and a word that crops up in the Bible, nowhere more frequently than in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which we read this morning. “Sin” is such a “church” word that we have trouble decoupling it from our liturgical expression in order to see how sin operates in big and little ways in our everyday life. So today we are going to reexamine Sin so we can get a better look at its patterns in the world.
The True Fast
The True Fast
by Adam Thomas
Out of all the feasts and fasts of the church year, Ash Wednesday is the one most liable to be misunderstood. We engage in the (admittedly strange) ritual of scraping soot on our foreheads to remind us of our existential limitations. We participate in this ritual because we humans have the troublesome habit of casting ourselves as the stars in the universal drama of God’s Creation. But the ashes tell a different story: one of transience, of fleetingness. And this makes sense, considering that if the history of the universe were a calendar year, humanity would make its appearance a second before midnight on December 31st.
Words Matter
Words Matter
by Adam Thomas
This sermon is about telling the truth. But to enter into a discussion about truth-telling, we first have to talk about words. Specifically about how our words can both curtail and expand our thoughts, and about how those in power can create societal narratives based on the words they choose. Language is a tool of creativity. The way we tell our creation story begins with God speaking creation into existence: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” In the Hebrew language the “word” happens to people like the prophet. The Word of God is an encounter that compels the prophet to action. Likewise, the Gospel of John identifies the person of Jesus as the Word of God, the ultimate happening of the Word as it becomes flesh and dwells among us as a human being.
The Missing Verses
The Missing Verses
by Adam Thomas
In a 2003 song, the band Death Cab for Cutie sings, “So this is the new year / And I don’t feel any different.” That’s about how I feel today, and it’s not a great feeling. The new calendar on our kitchen wall features pictures of our kids and our nieces and nephews a year older than they were in last year’s calendar. But other than that, nothing has changed. The turn from December to January is symbolic only. Four days ago, we marked that the earth completed another revolution around the sun, but every day could mark the same. Indeed, other calendars set the date later this year: Chinese New Year is February 17th, Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) is September 11th.
God’s Creativity
God’s Creativity
by Adam Thomas
Good evening and Merry Christmas. It is a great joy to celebrate this Feast of the Nativity with you tonight. We’ll start this sermon with a little trivia. Did you know there are two Nativity stories among the four accounts of the Gospel? There’s the one everyone remembers: the familiar story from Luke’s Gospel about Mary giving birth to Jesus and laying him in a manger in Bethlehem. You might think the other is the story in Matthew’s Gospel about the magi coming to bring Jesus presents, but that’s not a Nativity story. Jesus isn’t born in that story. The story of the magi literally begins “After Jesus was born…”
No, the second Nativity story happens in the Gospel reading we heard tonight, what scholars call the “prologue” to the Gospel According to John. In these beautifully poetic verses, the gospel writer presents the entire sweeping history of God’s creation in just a few short lines. The prologue begins just like the Book of Genesis: “In the beginning…”
Living in the New
Living in the New
by Adam Thomas
Imagine with me the imprisoned John the Baptist in the days before his execution. He has sent his disciples to ask Jesus the question from today’s Gospel reading, and they have just returned with Jesus’ answer.
My days are numbered, my friends. Herod is weak. He’s a petty ruler susceptible to the whims and flattery of those around him. One of these days I fear someone I have angered with my words will sway Herod to kill me and that will be that. But until that day comes, I will do everything I can to help you live into the new reality that is happening all around us. You will not be left orphaned when I am gone. I have only ever been a caretaker, a herald for the one who is coming after me. Because of what you just told me, I am convinced more than ever that Jesus is that one.
New Possibilities
New Possibilities
by Adam Thomas
Today’s sermon is about the unexpected grace of new possibilities. As we continue in our Advent season of preparation and anticipation, we practice opening ourselves up to how God is moving in our lives in the same type of unexpected ways that God moved in the lives of Mary and Joseph as they welcomed Jesus into the world. Mary practiced this openness when she said “Yes” to the angel. Joseph practiced this openness when he made a family with Mary despite pressure to reject her. Our openness to new possibilities is a symptom of the hope we place in the God who makes all things new. So let’s talk about new possibilities today: first we’ll look at the beginning of this morning’s reading from the Prophet Isaiah, then we will talk about three ways we can test that the new possibilities we are reaching for come from God.
Tolle Lege
Tolle Lege
by Adam Thomas
Today marks the beginning of Advent, the four week season to prepare for Christmas, that great and joyful mystery of God’s Word becoming flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Advent is a time of preparation and anticipation, a time in which we share the story of Jesus’ earthly family getting ready for his arrival, along with the words of the Hebrew prophets who came close enough to God to imagine a world where peace and reconciliation come to pass.
So today, on this First Sunday of Advent, lets talk about preparation. But instead of talking about our immediate preparations for this particular celebration of Christmas, I’d like to zoom out and talk about how God use the raw materials of our entire lives to prepare us to become the people God dreams for us to be.