Lection: Mark 1

January 25, 2009

A sermon on the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, given on the concluding Sunday of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Jonah 3: 1-5, 10
I Corinthians 7: 29-31
Mark 1: 14-20

I am not a preacher! I think that I am more comfortable when Amanda stands up here. And by the time I’m finished, maybe you will be too. Preaching is not my natural gift. I teach. I lead my students through their studies, and help them with their questions. But I don’t normally stand at the front of a worshipping congregation to preach the Word of God. I’m much more comfortable with my own words.

But today, I’m preaching because it is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This is a special Week in the Christian year for me and for Amanda, because we are what has come to be called an “interchurch couple.” We share together in each other’s churches. Perhaps some of you do not know this already. I am Roman Catholic. Amanda and I met when she was at seminary, and I was beginning my graduate work in ecumenical theology. We share together in an ecumenical vocation.

Here, … Read more »

January 11, 2009

Mark 1:4-11

It is wonderful to be able to conduct a baptism on this particular Sunday in the church year. Today is the day that we celebrate the “Baptism of the Lord”. The baptism of Jesus was such an important and pivotal moment in his life and ministry, and reflecting on that moment in Jesus’ life can help us to understand and to celebrate the meaning of baptism in our lives as Jesus’ followers.

In some ways, what we do when we gather to baptize an infant seems pretty far removed from what John the Baptizer was doing at the Jordan River so many years ago. The baptism this morning was marked by family, friends, and Christian community gathered in the warmth of a comfortable church, promises made, water poured, and words of blessing spoken for a child.

John’s baptism took place outside, down in the muddy waters of the Jordan. And it wasn’t so much about joining a community of faith or about receiving God’s blessing. They were adults who came to get baptized, and they did so because they wanted a fresh start, to confess their sins, and turn their lives in a new direction … Read more »

December 7, 2008

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”

When we hear those familiar words from the prophet Isaiah, or when we hear them repeated in the story of John the Baptist’s work, we automatically think about Jesus and his coming. The Lord we are waiting for is Jesus the Christ, his coming is into our world as an infant born to a young woman in small-town Israel many years ago. And the preparation that we are all called to do is something to do with confession and repentance. But, just for now, let’s remember the things that were happening back when the prophet Isaiah spoke these words the people of his own time.

A long time ago, more than five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God’s people, the people of Israel were in exile in a place called Babylon. You see, the powerful kingdom of the Babylonians … Read more »