Sermons & Meditations

Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Presented November 30, 2008, by J.D. Kline
The First Sunday of Advent

Alfred Delp was a Jesuit priest in Germany during the days of the Nazi regime, an outspoken opponent of Hitler’s government who was eventually arrested, as were a number of his fellow Jesuits. While in prison, Delp was offered freedom in return for leaving the Jesuits, but he would not deny his faith. Sentenced to death by hanging for high treason, Delp nevertheless wrote shortly after his trial that his life had been given a theme “worth living for, and worth dying for.”

Is this not the power of the Advent season we are entering, this season that anticipates the coming of Jesus into the world and that yearns for the ultimate fulfillment of God’s new creation—that time when life shall be fully transformed, when swords are beaten into plowshares and nations no longer teach the ways of war, when all humanity lives in justice and all peoples walk in the light of God’s abundant love? As we embrace this vision of Jesus and make it the guiding premise of our lives, do we not discover something worth living for, and indeed, something worth dying for? Do we not discover a wild and wonderful hope, in life and in death?

Alfred Delp described the season of Advent as “a time for rousing,” a time “when we are shaken to the very depths, so that we may wake up to the truth of ourselves.” Asserts Delp, “We must let go of all our mistaken dreams, our conceited poses and arrogant gestures, all the pretenses with which we hope to deceive ourselves and others.” In place of this arrogant self-preoccupation, we take hold of a new vision for living, a wild and wonderful purpose in life.

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Matthew 25:14-20
Presented November 16, 2008, by J.D. Kline
The 27th Sunday after Pentecost

Each of us, I suspect, has a list of scripture texts we find disturbing—passages that somehow seem out of place, seemingly inconsistent with the primary themes and character of scripture. One of those troubling texts is found near the end of this morning’s Gospel lesson, a text which reads, “To all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29). Allowed to stand alone, the text seems to provide blessing for the worst abuses of the capitalist system—a heartless grasping after ever-increasing possessions, and justification for the ever-spiraling gap between the rich and the poor. What is the intent of this passage of Scripture, and why would it be included by those who had heard Jesus speak so convincingly of the call to live simply and to share generously?

The verse is found near the end of a section commonly labeled the parable of the talents, a story of a landowner who entrusts his property to three of his slaves. In his commentary Matthew for Everyone biblical scholar Tom Wright reminds us that such a story of a master who, after entrusting tasks to his slaves, comes back at last, “would certainly be understood, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, as a story about God and Israel.” And if that is true, Jesus speaks the story as words of challenge to the people of his day, and our question becomes, What is the nature of that challenge?

Matthew’s Gospel, you may recall, includes five major blocks of Jesus’ teachings, and this parable falls near the end of the fifth section—a section that begins, in chapter 23, with Jesus lambasting the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is criticizing those religious leaders of the day because they seemingly have lost their way, placing far more focus upon matters of outward appearances than upon the heart of the law, which is justice and compassion and right living. In the parable of the talents, Jesus is asserting that the scribes and Pharisees are like the third servant who has been given a wonderful gift but chooses to bury that gift in the ground. Indeed, the scribes and Pharisees serve as representatives of the entire people of Israel, who have, Jesus asserts, become content with holding God’s love—God’s precious gift—to themselves, rather than embracing their calling to live as light to all the nations.

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Amos 5:18-24; Matthew 25:1-13
Presented November 9, 2008, by J.D. Kline
The 26th Sunday after Pentecost

No matter what your political persuasion, few would argue that something remarkable happened this week, with the election of Barack Obama as our first African-American president. When Obama was born in 1961, racial segregation was the norm in this nation, with many states mandating patterns of segregation by law. Bi-racial marriages, such as that of Obama’s own parents, were forbidden in a large number of our states. And in the South, few African-Americans had the freedom to vote; indeed, those who sought the vote often risked their lives. Is it any wonder that television images of Tuesday night’s election celebrations included picture after picture of persons with tears steaming down their cheeks? Tears of joy, tears of wonder, tears of remembrance of a painful past and tears of celebration for just how far we have come. For many—whether black or white, young or old—it was a defining moment in life, a moment difficult to fully take in. Those of us who came of age in the 1960s, in the turbulent days of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements, found ourselves recalling once again the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., particularly those spoken on the eve of his death, in a final sermon entitled “I Have Seen the Promised Land.” Can you not hear those eerily accurate words he preached that evening?

I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And God’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the promised land.

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