Confession at Confirmation

Ok, here is the truth, I havn't written a sermon in years. I've studied, researched, rehearsed, and preached once or twice a month for the last 7 years, but I rarely write any thing down. This assures that I won't "pull one out of the files" at the last minute.

It also makes it very hard to actually write a manuscript for a class I'm taking today called Process Preaching. This class is supposed to be about taking a manuscript and preaching an extemporaneous sermon. The hardest thing for me is going to be writing the manuscript!!!

So I'm working on my Confirmation sermon, several weeks in advance.

Confirmation reminds me of change, since we are welcoming these 17 young people as Adult Members of this congregation. They are affirming thier baptism. A gift given them, which they are claiming as their own. We celebrate this at Zion on Reformation Sunday, when we remeber how the church has changed in the last few hundred years.

So watch them grow. My kids are 2,4 and 8 now. The confirmands are in 9th grade, and the kids I confirmed my first year at Prince of Peace are in College now.

Change is good, chage is inevitable, change can be really really hard. Changing to the habit of writing things down for sermons is proving to be the third: really really hard!!

Sitting at the feet of the Lord

Just sitting, listening, hearing. That's what it seemed that Mary was doing in this week's Gospel verse. Martha was busy making dinner.

Can you take time to sit this summer?

At the feet of a friend?

by the bedside of a neighbor?

by the lake with a glass of lemondade?

"Be still, and know that I am God" Ps. 46:10

It is too easy to get caught up in the rush of summer vacation. It is good to vacate an over-harried schedule, and take the time to be still and pray.

Some of the kids in the Chisago Lakes area (about 90 of them) were somewhat still at Vacation Bible School. Twice during the morning they sat in thier tribes and listened to their leader. The rest of the time they were moving.

Both are good, moving and being still. But only one is necessary: Know that God is God!

Keep your hand on the Cultivator

Big Pete
Originally uploaded by thebigboat2000

We visited the Historic Kelly Farm last weekend and Jonah and I got to help Cultivate the Corn. We probably wern't much help, but I don't think we killed any corn. The idea is to plow up the weeds between the corn, so they die and the corn gets more water and nutrients so it can grow.

We are constantly being cultivated by God. The weeds that grow in our life; fears, angers, addictions, media, meanness, are being pulled out by the roots and thrown aside. We probably don't even see most of the threats to our faith. The ones that are closest to us are the hardest to pull. That job has to be done by hand. It can hurt to pull out the habits that seem to define us, but really defy us.

Have you cultivated your faith this year? Pull out the weeds and feed and water the good stuff.

Freedom

2007-02-28_10
Originally uploaded by thebigboat2000

What's keeping you inside? What has you all wrapped up and away from where you really want to be?

There was a guy in Gerasa who was pushed out by the others, sent away, even tied up to keep him in the sticks. Apparently he had some trouble in "normal" social situations. What troubles he had exactly we don't know but by the time we meet him he's ready to go off the deep end.

So Jesus shows up. Hops off the boat after crossing the lake and calming the storm. And this naked guy comes up to him and shrieks "Why are you bothering me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?" For Jesus had already commanded the evil spirits to leave.

Off the deep end they go, indeed. A whole crowd of demons take the pigs for a ride and jump off, into the sea. Gone, forever. Our Naked Man is now dressed, quiet and ready to follow Jesus wherever he goes. He is free.

He didn't ask, he didn't pay, he was just freed. In fact, he couldn't have asked for himself, he was that deep in the drink. Like the woman who had washed his feet, Jesus freed her of her sin before she asked. It is the sins that we don't acknowledge or perhaps even know about that really tie us up. The stuff we won't or can't or just don't confess before God and our neighbor.

But Jesus forgives us. For his sake we don't have to be tied up in chains, locked in a tomb, hidden away. We are free to tell others what God has done for us.

That is the request. Not an order, but an imperative: "Go home and tell what God has done for you!"