Valois United Church

Sermon, November 25, 2007

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Psalm 46 Voices United page 770

Luke 23:33-43

Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom....

Who is this one we follow, this king?

The one who was mocked as King of the Jews, because those who mocked could not see him as King of anything....

Who is this one we follow, this king?

Look at the rulers of his age. Look at the kings and emperors, look at Caesar. Look at Herod .

Many of these rulers held power often by terror. They did not value their people, they did not treasure the little ones. Poverty was none of their concern, justice was not a priority. Power. Riches. Power. Military might.

Sermon - November 18, 2007

Isaiah 65:17-25
Luke 21:5-19

I love some of the wonderful, uplifting readings that we find in scripture.
Today we heard wonderful words from Isaiah - words of hope, words of comfort.

These words were written after the people of Israel returned from exile and slavery in Babylon. We might thing that would be a wonderful period, but it was a huge let-down.

Can you imagine, coming back after a couple of generations to the promised land, coming back home with such great and wonderful hope, coming across the wilderness with anticipation... and instead of seeing the wonderful places that your parents and grandparents spoke of, you see cities and towns that have been torn down? Ruins. Lands that produced so well - overgrown.

And then Isaiah’s message coming to you, with God’s words of hope:
“For I about to create new heavens and a new earth....

Job 19:23-27a
Luke 20:27-38

I’m not sure that we all are clear on the differences between Pharisees and Sadducees, seeing as how we don’t know any people from these two groups.....  Often it doesn’t make too much difference for us.  But this week we end up with the Pharisees happy, and the Sadducees very unhappy with Jesus.  
    
The Pharisees believed in life after death.

The Sadducees held that only the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, were authoritative. Not finding mention of life after death in these books, they rejected the existence of live after death.

But the Sadducees knew that Jesus was saying that there was life after death.  So they set out to prove him wrong in their questioning.....

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
In the years that followed Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, church leaders went from city to city, from congregation to congregation.  Paul was the most well-known of these, but not the only itinerant preacher of his generation.

And when they left one place, they did not forget it. And they did not forget the people.
Rather, they wrote letters.

They had no e-mail.  
They had no telephone.  
They had no telegraph.
No, it was back to pen and paper, or quill and scroll, to communicate from one city to another.

And while the Roman empire was generally unfriendly to the Christian movement,
the Roman transportation system favoured communication by letter - even letters of faithful people, writing to communities of faith.

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Ephesians 1:11-23

I guess not many sermons are preached from the Daniel text which we heard this morning.  In part, the apocalyptic form of the book is not something we’re used to.  We encounter it in Daniel, and we run into it again in the book of Revelations - - which is also not used in many United Church sermons!

But it is a part of our tradition, it is a part of our scripture - so let’s see what it will say to us today.  

The book was written in about 165 B.C.
Life for the faithful Jews was not good -
    IV Epiphanes was a Hellenistic ruler who decided, after unsuccessfully invading Egypt, to persecute the Jews.  He desecrated the temple by killing a pig on the altar of the Temple, and burning it there, and trying to force people to eat the pork - and when they refused.... well, we won’t get into that part.  

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

In the days when these words were written, there were Christian believers who were getting lost, who were wandering from God’s way.

Some were confused by all the Greek gods.
Some were thinking that Jesus was not really at all divine, but only human....
just a teacher, nothing more.
Some were thinking that Jesus was completely divine,
and not human at all....
and so he would not have suffered human pain at all
in the crucifixion
Some were thinking that it did not matter at all what they did,
so long as they believed the right things -
so it mattered not how immorally they behaved.

2 Timothy 2:8-15
Psalm 66 VU 784, Part 1 & 2
Luke 17:11-19
Having leprousy isn’t easy.
I haven’t had this life as long as my friends - my “misery loves company” friends, nine of them. One of them is an oddball - he’s actually a Samaritan. Never spoke to a Samaritan before in my life before this happened.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 100 VU 824, refrain #2
Epistle Reading Philippians 4:4-9
Gospel Reading John 6:25-35

Today is a double-header: World-wide communion and Thanksgiving

An estimated 1.5 million people are living today after bouts with breast cancer. Every time I forget to feel grateful to be among them, I hear the voice of an eight-year-old named Christina, who had cancer of the nervous system. When asked what she wanted for her birthday, she thought long and hard and finally said, "I don't know. I have two sticker books and a Cabbage Patch doll. I have everything!" The kid is right.

Erma Bombeck, Redbook, October,1992.

The children have already named some of the things they are thankful for.
Before I continue,
take time
to begin to name, in your mind SPECIFIC things for which you are thankful today....

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91 VU 807
Luke 16:19-31

The year is 587 B.C.

Ten years ago the Babylonians came to Judah. They ransacked the territory. And they put Jerusalem under seige. Day after day the seige continued, month after month the people endured.

And then a year ago the Egyptians approached, and the siege was lifted.
And the people rejoiced.

Jeremiah did not rejoice. He told the people (Jer 37)

1 Timothy 2:1-7

What a day, the writer sighs as he sits down to compose his letter the next part of his letter. Days like this certainly get him in the right frame of mind to write in the name of his great hero in faith, Paul.