Sermons & Meditations

Mark 4:35-41
Presented June 25th, 2006, by J.D. Kline
The Third Sunday after Pentecost

Frank Thomas, pastor of a Baptist congregation in Memphis and publisher of The African American Pulpit, was one of the lecturers at the recent Festival of Homiletics I attended. Dr. Thomas spoke about the quest for hope, which he defined as the ability to look at a fundamentally flawed world and still trust in a God who offers freedom, healing and deliverance. In the face of a world marked by racism, militarism, rampant materialism and a host of other woes, hope is a matter of placing our trust in the God who is able to make all things new. That is to say, hope is trusting in an alternative reality, even when all appearances would suggest that there is precious little reason for hope.

The early church, much like the disciples who found themselves caught in a frightening storm on the Sea of Galilee, experienced times of intense struggle and uncertainty, times when it appeared as if there was no hope. Yet, even in the face of persecution and stormy seas, the early believers held fast to their hope, for they had heard the voice of the divine saying to them, Do not be afraid.

Look with me at the story of Jesus calming the storm. Apart from fishing, the ancient Israelites were not a seafaring people. Indeed, the sea had come to symbolize for them the dark powers of evil, that which threatens God’s creation, God’s people, God’s purposes. Perhaps you remember the powerful description in the book of Revelation of the new creation promised by God. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…and the sea was no more (Revelation 21:1). The image is of that time when chaos would no longer characterize much of human life, that time when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, that time when death will be abolished and grief and pain will no longer hold sway.

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Mark 4:26-34; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Presented June 18th, 2006, by J.D. Kline
The Second Sunday after Pentecost

There’s an old story of a rabbi who saw a man running in the street, and asked him, “Why do you run?” Replied the runner, “I’m running after my good fortune!” Responded the rabbi, “Silly man, your good fortune has been trying to chase you, but you are running too fast.” It’s an apt story for those of us immersed in a culture that has seemingly lost its balance. Who among us has not experienced the pervasive pressure to produce more, work more, earn more, accomplish more, even when surrounded by good gifts? Indeed, as Wayne Muller asserts in his book about Sabbath, “Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than rest, that doing something—doing anything—is better than doing nothing.” As a result, writes Muller, we have lost the essential rhythm of life, the rhythm between activity and rest, work and leisure, night and day, action and reflection. In our drive to succeed, to achieve more and more, we stand in peril of losing the compass points of life, in danger of losing our balance.

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John 3:1-17
Presented June 11th, 2006, by J.D. Kline
The First Sunday after Pentecost

An old tale tells the story of an aged Hasidic rabbi who crossed the center square of his village every morning on the way to the synagogue to pray. One morning a Cossack soldier, who happened to be in a vile mood, accosted him, saying, “Hey, Rebby, where are you going?” The old rabbi responded, “I don’t know,” an answer that infuriated the soldier. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Every morning for twenty-five years you have crossed this village square and gone to the synagogue to pray. Don’t fool with me. Who do you think you are, telling me you don’t know?” The angry soldier grabbed the old rabbi by the coat and dragged him off to jail. Just as he was about to push him into the cell, the rabbi turned to the soldier, saying, “You see, I didn’t know where I was going.”

We like to have things all nailed down in life, but truth is, much like the old rabbi, we frequently cannot foresee what will unfold before us. Much as we would like to be in control of all things, circumstances and events often confound us. Life is a journey, parts of which may well surprise, amaze, and even befuddle us.

I have a prayer by Thomas Merton, prolific writer about the spiritual life, hanging in my office. Taken from his book Thoughts in Solitude, it is a prayer that conveys this sense that we little know what may confront us in the future. The prayer begins this way: My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Any of us who have planted gardens know that, even though each spring we carefully select the number and the varieties of plants we will place in the ground, we cannot know what the end result will be. Will there be drought, or will there be flooding? Will we experience unusual heat or cold? Which seeds will do well, and which may not flourish in our soil? Will the rabbits enjoy the seedlings before they can mature into healthy plants? At the planting stage, we can only speculate on what the future may hold. Some of our growing efforts, no doubt, will be successful; others, despite our hard work, may not be successful at all.

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Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2:1-21
Presented June 4th, 2006, by J.D. Kline
Pentecost Sunday

William Willimon, currently bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church, was one of the speakers at the Festival of Homiletics I recently attended. After preaching a sermon in which he spoke of the clash of loyalties between the story of Jesus’ gospel and the story of the culture in which we find ourselves, Willimon closed with an abrupt benediction. “People of God, the Holy Spirit is with you,” Willimon reminded us, and then he added quite curtly, “Watch out! Amen.”

Watch out, because the Holy Spirit is ever prodding us to embrace a new loyalty, to place our primary allegiance in the realm or the kingdom of God, to choose the way of peace and nonviolence over the ways of hostility and militarism, to choose Christ’s way of compassion and grace rather than our culture’s obsession with competition and a pecking order, to opt for the ways of simplicity and servanthood rather than the ways of self-centeredness and obsession with personal gain. Watch out—for when the Holy Spirit is with us, we dare not rest comfortably with life as it presently is. Rather, the Spirit of God challenges us to take on new ways of thinking and relating, new avenues of Christian discipleship, new expressions of faithful living. Watch out, because we may well find ourselves led in directions we cannot now foresee—taken by the scruff of the neck and carried into unforeseen avenues.

The ancient Israelites, living in exile in the foreign land of Babylon, saw little reason for hope, little reason to trust that the Spirit of God was alive and well. Jerusalem and their beloved temple, the holy place where the people had long been convinced that God dwells—all this was destroyed, and the people were compelled to live in a strange land, separated from the comfortable and the familiar. Unwanted change had invaded the people’s living, with the very underpinnings of their lives destroyed. Along the way, the exiles found themselves questioning whether there was anything in life that could be counted on any longer.

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