Sermons & Meditations

Jeremiah 1:4-10; Romans 12:1-2, 9-17
Presented January 28th, 2007, by J.D. Kline
Shared Worship—Second Baptist Church

There were two great shaping events in the life of the ancient people of Israel. The first was the Exodus, the well-known story of God, through Moses, leading the people out of slavery into the Promised Land. It is a remarkable tale of freedom, redemption, and new life. Lesser known, but equally significant in terms of its impact upon the ancient Israelites’ self-understanding, is the experience of the Exile, that painful time nearly six centuries before Christ when the unthinkable happened, when Jerusalem was overrun, the temple destroyed, and the people forced to live in exile in the foreign land of Babylon.

It is this second event—the story of the exile—that I invite you to consider with me this morning. Jeremiah was a key prophet during that period of time, spanning both the days leading up to Jerusalem’s fall and the actual days of exile. Prior to exile, Jeremiah was dismissed as a prophet of doom, a lonely voice announcing that a time of judgment was coming. Jeremiah thundered against his fellow Israelites for having “a stubborn and rebellious heart” (5:23), for turning away from God and going astray. While competing prophets of the day cried “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (6:14; 8:11), Jeremiah saw in the people’s neglect of the poor in their midst, in their lack of compassion for the hurting, in a complacency in the face of violence and militarism—in all of this the prophet saw glaring signs of the people’s unfaithfulness to God. Truth is, Jeremiah saw what others in his day either could not see or would not see. Jeremiah saw what was just beneath the surface—the reality of injustice, oppression, violence, suspicion, and fear.

Truth be told, this ability to see what others do not see stands at the heart of the calling of a prophet. Some tend to reduce prophecy to a matter of speaking about the future, but the task of the prophets of old was much greater. It was to challenge the people to embrace a new way of living in the present. The prophet’s ministry was to speak the truth forthrightly, to call the people again and again to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly in and with the Spirit of God.

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Isaiah 62:1-5; Luke 4:16-21
Presented January 14th, 2007, by J.D. Kline
The Second Sunday after Epiphany

We’ve just begun a new series of Inquirers’ classes providing opportunity for persons new to our congregation to consider Church of the Brethren beliefs, traditions, and practices. One of the central qualities in the life of the Brethren that has dawn me through the years is our blending of the personal dimensions of faith with a passion for justice and peace. We have recognized that a life of faithfulness does not demand that we choose between personal spirituality and social justice, but rather that these two arms of faithful living go hand in hand.

Of course, Brethren are far from the only people who have recognized that the journey of faithfulness impacts all of life. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose leadership was so critical in the civil rights movement of this nation, helping us to embody more fully the values we had long espoused, was one who blended the personal and social arms of faith. In the midst of the bus boycott that began in Montgomery, Alabama in December 1955, King began to receive increasing numbers of obscene and threatening phone calls. One night, after a particularly menacing voice snarled threats into the phone, King found himself at wit’s end. Unable to get back to sleep, his nerves on edge, he sat for a long time in the kitchen of his home, brooding over a cup of coffee as it grew cold. King began to question how he might maneuver a graceful retreat from the increasingly burdensome leadership, and soon found himself praying aloud, “I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.” And then, in answer, King suddenly felt a resurgence of energy and inner peace, and it was as if a voice from the depths of his being was saying, “Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for truth, and God will be at your side forever.”

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Matthew 2:1-12; Ephesians 3:1-12
Presented January 7th, 2007, by J.D. Kline
Epiphany Sunday

Some of you may know that I collect nativity scenes, and one of my favorite things about the Christmas season is seeing the variety of ways the familiar Christmas story and its characters are visualized. Nativity scenes, of course, are based upon a blending of the two very different accounts of the birth of Jesus—accounts provided in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. And one of the drawbacks that comes with the familiar portrayals of the nativity is the common assumption that the shepherds, whom Luke tells us about, and the magi or the wise men, whom Matthew describes, arrive on the scene together. Far more likely, these represent very different events.

But setting timetables—even ascertaining if these are literal events—this is not the critical issue; rather, what’s most important is the message behind the events. Though Matthew’s Gospel was primarily written to a Jewish audience, the story of the mysterious magi journeying to Bethlehem makes the powerful affirmation, right at the beginning of the Gospel story, that the coming of Jesus has universal significance. It is not merely reserved for one particular group of people, but rather for all humanity. Jesus comes as Immanuel, God-with-us, God-with-all-humanity. God comes in the very midst of human life, life that includes struggle, tragedy and pain every bit as much as peace and serenity.

There are some who rather dismissively suggest that the Christmas story is not much more than a feel-good story, the story of a cuddly infant born in a cozy manger. But such a perspective is spoken by those who surely have not read Matthew’s account. Tom Wright, in his commentary Matthew for Everyone asserts that “at the heart of the Christmas story in Matthew’s Gospel is a baby who poses such a threat to the most powerful man around [Herod] that he kills a whole village full of other babies in order to try to get rid of him.”

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