Sermons & Meditations

Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Presented November 27, 2011, by Joel Kline
The First Sunday of Advent

Early on in my experience as a pastor, I struggled a great deal with my own sense of calling. Is the pastoral ministry the right “fit” for me, I frequently wondered, particularly since I found myself frustrated and impatient with the disparity that all too often exists between what the church proclaims and how that same church acts. The questions have never fully disappeared—indeed, I suspect they never should!—but I did begin to recognize how important it was for me to look inwardly, to examine the inconsistencies in my own life before investing so much energy lamenting any disparity I noted in the lives of others and in the church community. In other words, I had my own work to do, and in response, I began to develop a set of spiritual disciplines, meeting regularly with a spiritual director or guide through the years and creating intentional times for prayer and meditation and journaling—times for honest confession of my own shortcomings and brokenness every bit as much as those yearnings deep within me for healing and wholeness in the world around me, for a deepening taste of justice and compassion, peace and new life.

During those beginning years of ministry I recall hearing a fellow pastor talking about the hymnody of the church, pointing out how we perhaps overstate and “over-sing” the commitments we make to our faith. You will remember the familiar hymn that begins, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”  In one of the stanzas we sing, “Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.” Even now, every time I hear or read or sing those words, I have to stop and ask myself, “Really? As one living in the midst of a materialistic culture that assigns personal value in terms of how much we earn and possess, can I honestly claim that I am willing to place everything that I own in the hands of God?”

In the haunting Advent hymn we sang as worship began this morning, O Come, O Come, Immanuel, we pray the prayer, O come, desire of nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife, and quarrel cease. Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace. Again, I find myself needing to ask, “Is this a prayer I can freely make my own? How willingly do I let go of the envy and the quarreling and the strife buried deep in my own heart and soul; am I able to cast aside those yearnings for success and status and recognition that may well keep me from respecting and honoring the gifts of others; am I willing to take on the heart of a servant, setting aside my own pursuits when necessary to help bring about a deepening peace and unity to human life?”

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Genesis 28:10-22
Presented November 13, 2011, by Joel Kline
The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Progressive Brethren Gathering

Perhaps you remember the Dr. Seuss book, And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street. It’s the delightful tale of a little boy who, while walking home, “sees” a wonderful circus parade coming down the street. When he reaches home, the youngster enthusiastically describes what he has seen to his father in vivid detail. The father, however, is skeptical, repeatedly questioning his son, “What really happened on Mulberry Street?” The story is continually eroded until the boy finally acknowledges that what he actually saw on Mulberry Street was a “plain horse and wagon.”

At one level And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street is a fun and delightful Dr. Seuss story, yet at another level it points to one of our culture’s biases, a suspicion of the imagination, a tendency to look with dismay upon anything but the most concrete and most visible. It’s a perspective that makes faith difficult for many in our day, for the very essence of faith demands an ability to look beyond ourselves, to envision something greater than we are, to trust—all appearances to the contrary—that a new world is unfolding. A new world is in the works.

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