Easter 2016

When the tsunami comes, is it fight, flight, or freeze? Or maybe you just run into it headlong, damn the consequences, because some things are worth running for. Hike up your skirts. Resurrection is worth running for. Luke 24.

Screwing Up, Getting Better: 5/5

"Right-sizing" is one of the hardest things to do. We simultaneously think ourselves too big and too small. Like the great Anne Lamott has said, "I am a piece of shit around which the whole world revolves." Amen, sister. Simon Peter said the same exact thing in Luke 5:1-11.

Screwing Up, Getting Better: 4/5

For Lent, we thought about the contemporary sins of our culture, our generation. This one is a little clumsy: the compulsion to form an opinion about everything, and publish it, quickly. Perhaps the antidote is genuine curiosity about our neighbors? Mr. Rogers seems to think so.

Screwing Up, Getting Better: 3/5

She doesn't look particularly wicked, does she?

Could our preoccupation with physical comfort be turned into something good for the world? Hm. We'll see. We read several scathing portions of Amos: 4:1-5, 6:1-7, 8:4-7. We also read a much nicer story in John 12:1-8.

Screwing Up, Getting Better: 2/5

On the second Sunday of our “Screwing Up, Getting Better” worship series, we confessed our “belief in salvation by technology.” Nobody actually believes that tech is the messiah, but we are awfully prone to coming up with technological semi-solutions that don't actually solve the problem they were intended to address, and which then become problems of their own.

For example, Greatest Generation folks wanted a sense of community and belonging, so they built church buildings, hoping to get that feeling from walls and floors. But instead they (and their descendants) got deferred maintenance, balloon notes, property committees, and arguments about the color of the carpet. The building was a technological “solution” to the problem of community formation.

In Exodus 14, the narration of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt through the Red Sea, the word “chariot” is used 16 times. The intense repetition clues us in that Pharaoh’s technology is getting the best of him. Indeed, it’s the chariot axles and wheels that get bogged down in the mud at the bottom of the Red Sea and cause the demise of the army. You can picture Pharaoh screaming at his troops, “Go, go, go, go!” because that’s what you do when you’ve got lots of tech – you use it, fast and hard, to get what you want. Until it’s drowning you.

By contrast, in the same story God is exhorting the Israelites to “Keep still, and watch.” God has no tech – only the elements of creation: fire and cloud, land and sea, dark and light. “Keep still and watch,” God says to the pursued people of God, while Pharaoh screams “GO!”

We’re weirdly comfortable, though, in Pharaoh’s economy. It’s much harder to “Keep still and watch.” We have lots of technological “help” in our lives that requires our attention, our energy, our “Go, go, go!” We mediate even our relationships with people and with God through layers and layers of tech – not only through our phones, but there it is.

We suggest that Sabbath observance, Commandment Numero Quatro in the Big Ten from Exodus 20, is God’s insistence that we “Keep still and watch,” trusting that God and God’s creation will give us everything we need. Sabbath practice is about disengaging from all the technology and work and “Go!” that drives us all the other days of the week.

So on Sunday last, we turned out all the lights, checked our phones at the door, turned off the projector and screen, ditched the microphones, and relied on our voices alone – along with the simplicity of bread and cup – to create our worship of God. We kept still. We watched. We imposed a little Sabbath disengagement, just for a little while. Just to see how it felt.

It felt good.

And there was no recording, because #notech.

Screwing Up, Getting Better: 1/5

This is the Coupland book that first named our first sin.

In a worship series for Lent, we're addressing several new (but really old) ways that human beings show how f***ed up we can be. In this one we're talking about our "willful neglect of reflection," a sin named in 199x by Douglas Coupland as a particular failing of Gen Xers. But Moses warned about it first in Deuteronomy 6.

Interrogating the Deity: 4/4

Leviathan. It's not really making you feel better, is it?

So, God is finally ready to answer Job... sort of. The way God does. Because God is God, and you're not. Job 38-42. Good luck with that.

Interrogating the Deity: 3/4

Flying from LA to NY, can you ever really say, "Now I'm in Kansas"?

So Job says he wants to talk to God, argue it out. His insistence on not settling for the easy answer is... admirable? lunatic? You decide. Job 22 and 23.

Interrogating the Deity: 2/4

Lance Pape continues his investigation into the Bible's testimony concerning human suffering and the goodness of God.

Interrogating the Deity: 1/4

Dr. Lance Pape, looking contemplative.

Lance Pape, a professor at Brite Divinity School (TCU) and our pastor's spouse, helps us think about how the world really works in God's care. Is it fair? Is it good? Is it simple? Hm. Psalm 1 and Psalm 73 are the two texts you need to get started. (These four lessons are like a mini-series -- you need to hear this one before you hear the next one, etc.)

too soon to kill him

"Maybe All is Not Lost" -- an album of worship music by our worship architect Paul Demer -- debuted last Sunday in worship. But it wasn't a concert; it was worship. So we talked about Jesus, natch. Luke 4:13-30.

We made an album, y'all!

In God's Good Time: 7/7

We're starting off 2016 talking about vipers and fire. Happy new year, y'all!

There are persons, and there are systems... and there are good persons in bad systems... and John the Baptist seems to think Jesus can do something about that. What do you think? Luke 3:1-38.

In God's Good Time: 6/7

You could not pay me enough to be twelve years old again. Srsly. So what does it mean that God subjects God's own self to it? Luke 2:41-52. 

In God's Good Time: 5/7

In Luke 2:22-40, the old folks join the conversation. Meet Simeon and Anna, who both know how to take the long view.

In God's Good Time: 4/7

A guest preacher! Dr. Lance Pape, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Brite Divinity School (and spouse of our pastor), says Christianity is not so much about believing the right things, but about what we find beautiful.  Amen.

In God's Good Time: 3/7

HIS NAME IS JOHN CE-wait, wrong John. My bad, y'all.

Luke 1:57-80, it's Zechariah's turn for an aria in this parental prequel to the nativity. "His name is John" is the least crazy thing this dad has to say about his son. What do your parents say about you?

In God's Good Time: 2/7

She's a rebel, she's a saint, she's the salt of the earth, and she's dangerous... Whatshername, Green Day, and Mary the mother of Jesus have more in common than you might think.

Luke 1:26-56 -- a teenaged, unmarried, pregnant girl/woman is the one God chooses to save the whole freakin' world. God's always doing stuff like that. Thanks be to God.

In God’s Good Time: 1/7

Hmm. I'm not sure.

We're on to the gospel of Luke now, for the back story to Jesus's birth. First we meet Elizabeth, and remember her ancestor Hannah, women who were shamed for not conforming to the gendered role of "mother." Could we stop with the shaming, please? Luke 1:1-25.

Jesus H. Christ: 11/11

Mark 13 is a whole chapter about the end of the world as we know it. Jesus said more about the Zombie Apocalypse than you might imagine -- and less. 

Michon. She will cut. you. up.

Jesus H. Christ: 10/11

What does your church do with your money? Wouldn't you like to know?

In Mark 12:35-44, Jesus sits himself down to watch how much moola people put in the plate. Seriously?!