What do you want to get out of a sermon? If you have to hear one, what would you want to get from a sermon? Do you want to learn something? Do you want to be moved in your faith? Do you want to feel good about yourself? What might you look for?
I look for a way to an idea about what God might be doing in the world? What kind of things does God find interesting? How does God behave? I'm always interested in this quest.
So in this sermon we see how God is NOT working or what does NOT interest God. God is not about ritual and having to do things in order for God to love us. God loves us, and that changes us. Sometimes it's a simple as that.
Here's a sermon: did you get what you wanted from it?
May your tables be full and your conversations be true.
Your Blog Steward
- Scott Frederickson
- I am more and more convinced that most congregations die from a staggering lack of imagination. Let's change that. Let's imagine a creative future with God and each other together. Drop me a line on email or leave a comment if you have thoughts on God, Jesus, congregations, the church or whatever.... I look forward to our conversations.
Monday, December 7, 2015
It's always a question of timing...
If you've listened to that sermon, you know I reference this guy: Joseph Sittler
In the course of my career, I have learned much from reading his work. (I only met him twice in my life, towards the end of his, and his health was not good. But he was impressive even then.) I would say the three things I most appreciate about him are:
1) his connection between Jesus Christ and the environment. His work in this area has allowed me to stay a Christian because the environment is a huge issue for me. I cannot do his thought justice in this blog, but his linking of whatever God did with Jesus in the manger is related to what God did in making mountains and stars is quite possibly the most important move in contemporary American theology in the last 300 years.
2) My wife was his last student. She had him as a teacher who taught her the importance of language, theology, and how poetry is God's preferred way of speaking. As a teacher of English before I became a theologian, I always have appreciated that about his work. His Doctrine of the Word is my favorite work of Lutheran theology outside of Luther's own writings.
And he happened to wander into my class on my first day of seminary...does God really work this way? (I think so.) Thanks be to God!
May your tables be full and your conversations be true.
Wealth of God
What are your plans for your wealth? Even if you have nothing, what are your going to do with that?
Like the widow in my sermon, would you stand in line to give all you could? These are the questions posed for us these days as we approach Christmas.
Our wealth is on full display at this time of year, and the great Dickens story about Ebeneezer Scrooge is just one example of how we deal with our wealth. We can have so much amidst so little, and it can be a lot overwhelming.
The Spirit of generosity is a gift from God that comes from God's unlimited generosity. When it comes to wealth, of course, we want God to be generous. But when it comes to forgiveness?? Maybe not so much.
I am constantly amazed at how many people see the generosity of God in forgiving us as something that has limits. Why would you wish that so? Is "fairness" really that big a deal? Why would God limit forgiveness? I've never understood why people think that way...
But then I've never really understood the widow who gave the two coins to the treasury that day. I suppose--warning: pun coming--they are just two sides of the same coin. (you were warned) Generosity is difficult no matter whether we are talking about wealth or forgiveness. But as tough as it is for us, God seems to have no problem with being generous...thanks be to God.
May your tables be full and your conversations be true.
Location, Location, Location!
It's true in real estate, it's true in theology. You can only be where God planted you. Sometimes, it's a fit; sometimes, not so much...
We spend a lot of time as people trying to make our location fit us; rather, than having our location shape us. For example, I love mountains, but I've never had to live in them. I've lived on the prairie most of my life, and the Texas desert when I didn't. I'm not used to making mountains part of my life.
But many of my friends and co-workers over the years have grown up in mountains, and the prairie drives them nuts. There's no boundaries, no landmarks you can see for miles away--in short, there is just too much sky.
We get that way in our congregations as well. We try to put a group of people who live in the mountains into congregations like those out on the prairie. Just doesn't work. We have to be attentive to our locations geographically, but even more so culturally. And this is where congregations often fail.
We use the ministries of one location as if it will adapt immediately to any and all location. We assume all people are all the same, and that if something works for congregation Chi it will also work for congregation Rho, even though the two congregations have little in common but a short name.
We need to see that God gives us many different locations for ministry, and to see that each location has its own unique culture, its own way of living, its own way of being human. That's what congregations do.
Below you'll find a sermon that comes from one such location in the world. If you were to find any part of it useful for your life, make sure you use your location to have it make sense.
May your tables be full and your conversations be true.
We spend a lot of time as people trying to make our location fit us; rather, than having our location shape us. For example, I love mountains, but I've never had to live in them. I've lived on the prairie most of my life, and the Texas desert when I didn't. I'm not used to making mountains part of my life.
But many of my friends and co-workers over the years have grown up in mountains, and the prairie drives them nuts. There's no boundaries, no landmarks you can see for miles away--in short, there is just too much sky.
We get that way in our congregations as well. We try to put a group of people who live in the mountains into congregations like those out on the prairie. Just doesn't work. We have to be attentive to our locations geographically, but even more so culturally. And this is where congregations often fail.
We use the ministries of one location as if it will adapt immediately to any and all location. We assume all people are all the same, and that if something works for congregation Chi it will also work for congregation Rho, even though the two congregations have little in common but a short name.
We need to see that God gives us many different locations for ministry, and to see that each location has its own unique culture, its own way of living, its own way of being human. That's what congregations do.
Below you'll find a sermon that comes from one such location in the world. If you were to find any part of it useful for your life, make sure you use your location to have it make sense.
May your tables be full and your conversations be true.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
We're better than this...
I go away for a month, and social media seems a little crazy, What's worse, is that people who use social media to live their life, make it even crazier. Donald Trump? Every time he appears in a feed or a post or a commercial (I've been in Iowa recently) I move on. I don't bother. His track record is being an arrogant and greedy man, and I assume he wants to be a politician only to rob me. Why would I listen to a robber? I'm better than that.
We're blaming refugees because we don't want to admit our fear. Or, if we admit our fear, it is now acceptable to become xenophobic rather than deal with the fear. Seriously, does the Statue of Liberty mean anything at all? Didn't people learn in school that the whole point of the United States of America is to be a tossed salad of ethnicities, colors, genders, (we added that one recently), religions, politics, and philosophies? (I was going to add economic systems, but if Bernie Sanders is considered a "socialist" then we have totally bought into liberal capitalism. Economically, the only difference between Trump and Sanders is that one emphasizes the "liberal" and the other the "capitalism," but it's the same theory and system for each one. Neither one wants the government to own General Motors or Berkshire Hathaway.) So in our fear we blame the most recent for our fears, and so Arabs of all types are the scapegoat. We're better than this.
Perhaps you've heard the story of the Garden of Eden, and its two human inhabitants, Adam and Eve. Throughout centuries (and the written story is at least 4000 years old) this story has founded three major religions, and countless imaginations on the complexity of human interaction with other humans, nature, and the Divine. I won't go into too many details here, but there's something you have to know about the story, and I think it will help us see through the idiocy that is wandering through the social media these days. Adam and Eve were free to do anything they wanted in the garden--except eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. According to the story, anything else was permitted.
Now Nietzsche (see more) rightly saw that we must go beyond good and evil in order to accept the humanity we have been given. How's that going for you? BUT, what even a great reader like Nietzsche doesn't deal with is the obvious freedom Adam and Eve DO NOT choose. That is, rather than exercising their freedom, they choose to disobey the one rule they have been given. From this we understand that we would rather do something negative to ourselves to prove our freedom rather than exercise our freedom to gain greater humanity; or, in some cases, any humanity. You see, in order to gain more freedom, gain more humanity Adam and Even could have exercised the freedom they were given by the Divine and just left the garden. They were created for more than that. They could have said, "We're better than this. How about we leave and see what else we can be or do?"
And we are better than the xenophobic fear-mongering that seems to be all the rage these days. Here's the secret: we are all refugees on this planet. We are all better than this. Do you think God made you so you could sit around and watch Netflix? That that's why you were birthed? Did the Divine breathe life into you so you could sit around and listen to idiots pontificate about who's got the best ideas to keep the poor poor, and the wealthy wealthy? Come one friends, we're better than this.
My advice, if you're afraid or refugees or dying or whatever, it to walk out of the garden and see what's on the other side of the fence? (Or wall, as the case may be...) We are created free, and let us not choose the links and pages of slavery to destroy the gift of our humanity. In our tradition, we have a saying that goes, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil." And don't forget, in order for that sentence to be true, we have to walk. We're better than this. Let's walk.
May your tables be full and your conversations be true.
We're blaming refugees because we don't want to admit our fear. Or, if we admit our fear, it is now acceptable to become xenophobic rather than deal with the fear. Seriously, does the Statue of Liberty mean anything at all? Didn't people learn in school that the whole point of the United States of America is to be a tossed salad of ethnicities, colors, genders, (we added that one recently), religions, politics, and philosophies? (I was going to add economic systems, but if Bernie Sanders is considered a "socialist" then we have totally bought into liberal capitalism. Economically, the only difference between Trump and Sanders is that one emphasizes the "liberal" and the other the "capitalism," but it's the same theory and system for each one. Neither one wants the government to own General Motors or Berkshire Hathaway.) So in our fear we blame the most recent for our fears, and so Arabs of all types are the scapegoat. We're better than this.
Perhaps you've heard the story of the Garden of Eden, and its two human inhabitants, Adam and Eve. Throughout centuries (and the written story is at least 4000 years old) this story has founded three major religions, and countless imaginations on the complexity of human interaction with other humans, nature, and the Divine. I won't go into too many details here, but there's something you have to know about the story, and I think it will help us see through the idiocy that is wandering through the social media these days. Adam and Eve were free to do anything they wanted in the garden--except eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. According to the story, anything else was permitted.
Now Nietzsche (see more) rightly saw that we must go beyond good and evil in order to accept the humanity we have been given. How's that going for you? BUT, what even a great reader like Nietzsche doesn't deal with is the obvious freedom Adam and Eve DO NOT choose. That is, rather than exercising their freedom, they choose to disobey the one rule they have been given. From this we understand that we would rather do something negative to ourselves to prove our freedom rather than exercise our freedom to gain greater humanity; or, in some cases, any humanity. You see, in order to gain more freedom, gain more humanity Adam and Even could have exercised the freedom they were given by the Divine and just left the garden. They were created for more than that. They could have said, "We're better than this. How about we leave and see what else we can be or do?"
And we are better than the xenophobic fear-mongering that seems to be all the rage these days. Here's the secret: we are all refugees on this planet. We are all better than this. Do you think God made you so you could sit around and watch Netflix? That that's why you were birthed? Did the Divine breathe life into you so you could sit around and listen to idiots pontificate about who's got the best ideas to keep the poor poor, and the wealthy wealthy? Come one friends, we're better than this.
My advice, if you're afraid or refugees or dying or whatever, it to walk out of the garden and see what's on the other side of the fence? (Or wall, as the case may be...) We are created free, and let us not choose the links and pages of slavery to destroy the gift of our humanity. In our tradition, we have a saying that goes, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil." And don't forget, in order for that sentence to be true, we have to walk. We're better than this. Let's walk.
May your tables be full and your conversations be true.
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