The Space Between

(This sermon was preached Christmas Eve 2010 at Messiah Lutheran Church, Knoxville, TN)  Why are you here tonight? What brings you to 6900 Kingston Pike and Messiah Lutheran Church? Are you here out of habit? Going to church on Christmas Eve is…just what you do?  Are you here out of some obligation…to your spouse or child or grandchild…or, because your parents made you come…or because it’s what your family does, your family always goes to church on Christmas Eve? Why are you here? Maybe you’re here because you want to be here. You’re here because Christmas is exactly what it says it is, the Mass of Christ, that time we set aside to worship Christ, the Son of God at his birth?     Or, maybe it’s some sort of combination of habit and obligation and desire to worship. Or, is it mostly because you’re genuinely looking for something? What?

As the autumn of the year marches on, the daylight hours diminish.  With each passing day there is less light and greater darkness.  Many times life also feels that way, doesn’t it?  Stumbling through the latest crisis, be it personal or global, we look about and think, “My Lord , how much darker it seems.” Many times in the history of the Hebrew people, times when they were being threatened by powerful enemies, they too must have looked about and thought, “My Lord, how dark!” Surrounded by powerful armies, threatened with exile, lamenting the loss of land, culture and history, they had to feel abandoned, hopeless. It was into this time of darkness that the prophet Isaiah came forth bearing a word of the Lord . O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord ! (Isaiah 2:5) Isaiah spoke the Word, light into the midst of their darkness, to remind them that they were not abandoned, not alone, not without hope. God was going to continue to provide for them a fu...

I was still pondering the paradox of a king (Christ) who suffers and dies, when my mind flashed on a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote:  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies 
hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction...The chain reaction
 of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of
 annihilation. [1] Pondering the suffering King, as well as King’s quote on the one hand, and looking at the generations old conflict in the Middle East, the years of war in Afghanistan, the news of North Korea’s artillery attacks on South Korea , etc. on the other hand, makes me conclude that we still don’t get it. Maybe you’re thinking, of course we don’t get it. But, no, that’s not what I mean. We keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results. [2...

This sermon was preached on the Last Sunday after Pentecost – Christ the King, November 21, 2010 at Messiah Lutheran Church, Knoxville, TN.  The text at the heart of the sermon is the psalm for the day, Psalm 46  as well as the gospel, Luke 23:33-43 .                                                                                                  + + +                         A third grader was given the homework assignment of writing an essay that explained why she believed...

The sermon from Nov. 14, 2010, the 25 th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28C), Messiah Lutheran, Knoxville, TN. based on Luke 21:5-19 .                          Some of you may recognize this song. [Play excerpt from R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine.)”]        R.E.M. performing live Others of you may be thinking, “That was a song?” Yes, that was an excerpt from R.E.M.’s 1987 song “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” And whether or not you like this song, you must admit that it’s a song that has this energy and sort of anger and frustration about it.  And yet, it is a song, which then ironically turns with just those last few words, “And I Feel Fine.” Whether R.E.M. meant the “I Feel Fine” in a straightforward way or as some kind of critique of our culture’s denial of the plethora of is...