Sermon of the Week:
What’s Next?

A sermon preached for The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on November 21, 2021.

Special Music: Simple Things
Hymns: We Praise You, O God
Now Thank We All our God

Keywords: Gratitude, Guilt, Anxiety, Thanksgiving. #pcusa​​​​​​

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
1 Timothy 2:1-7
and Matthew 6:25:33

Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-733469.
All rights reserved.

It came as a bit of surprise to me when I read the gospel lesson
commended for this year’s Thanksgiving reflection.
This reading before us today from Matthew.

Here it is, Thanksgiving week.
I expected to see something about giving thanks, about GRATITUDE.

Instead, we get the Sermon on the Mount,
and Jesus’ always challenging words,
“Don’t Worry!” “Don’t be anxious!”
“Can any of you by worrying
add a single hour to your span of life?”

What does that have to do with turkey and pumpkin pie?

Well, not so much, you might argue.

I’m betting that you might have heard a Thanksgiving sermon
that goes something like this:
we are blessed, in so many ways,
with material things,
with health, and security,
loving friends and family;
therefore we should give thanks to God for all these blessings,
when so many are not as lucky;
and we should share what we’ve been given with others.

Nothing in there, not really, about anxiety, or worry.
Nothing about our ability or inability to actually be thankful.

In other words, as I’ve heard it expressed,
a thanksgiving sermon
should be about this:
thanksgiving really just equals “thanks” plus “giving.”

Now, I’ve preached that sermon, or some variation thereof, myself.

And all of those things are true:
we are truly blessed, my goodness,
so fortunate are we,
especially here in the United States.
We should give thanks to God for those blessings,
and we should share
what we’ve been given with others.
No question in my mind about that.

I’m just not sure that’s what true “thanksgiving” is about, though,
or what Thanksgiving is for.

I can’t help but hear, and cringe at, all those “SHOULDS”.
What we SHOULD feel. What we SHOULD do. How we SHOULD respond.

There’s a lot of guilt in there.
Somehow, being told what I should do,
makes me feel a bit guilty,
rather resentful, more than a little recalcitrant.

Am I living up to what God wants of me?
What if I am having trouble, this year, finding this gratitude?
Yes, I know I’m fortunate, and surrounded by the bounty of a generous God
But it has been hard,
There’s been so much loss
My neighbors have disappointed me so
And I am tired…
What then? What’s next? Gratitude? Really?

///

Here’s the thing: nothing in church is about guilt.
Nothing: other than God’s forgiveness and God freeing us from it.

Thanksgiving is no different.

I don’t believe that thanksgiving, or as I would call it,
the spiritual practice of gratitude,
is just something we “should” do.
Gratitude is something we “get to” do.

Practicing gratitude, I believe, is one of the most helpful and profound ways
of deepening our relationship with God,
of recognizing God’s presence and activity in our life.
of growing our intimacy with God,
of not allowing our anxieties and our worries to cripple us
from the work we actually need to be about.

And truly,
This is PARTICULARLY important during days like these
Days of anxiety and worry and discord…
Have you felt it, all around you?
I have.
People who are worried about our future, or their safety,
for the very fabric of our communities.

There will be plenty of sermons to come about
How we as people of faith
can spread God’s love and God’s concern for justice
During days like these
And Advent is all about God’s response
To all of that
deep within us…

But Today: Here’s the good news:
We’re INVITED to practice gratitude,
To give it a go,
not because it makes God feel good to be thanked
but because it is GOOD for US, and good for the world.
It transforms us.
It can heal us.
And it prepares us for the work of being God’s people.

///

John Buchanan, the now retired
Pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago,
talked about the importance of Gratitude this way:[i]

Gratitude is, after all, at the very heart of our faith,
the fundamental Christian emotion.
Gratitude, the theologians have always said,
is the basic human RESPONSE
to the goodness and mercy of God
and to grace,
[which is] God’s undeserved and unconditional love.

At the heart of Christian experience and teaching, Buchanan says
is not guilt,
as we have sometimes been taught;
not obligation,
as we occasionally conclude and teach;
but gratitude, pure and simple
—gratitude for God’s grace,
gratitude because all of life, all of it,
is a gift that we did not earn
but [a gift that we] were given.

///

Fair enough.
But how do we get there?
How do we practice Gratitude?
How do we nurture thankfulness, even in these days?
How do we get there without having all those SHOULDs placed upon us?

///

The more I thought about this passage from Matthew,
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life….
the more I realized
how much Jesus’ words really do have to do with thanksgiving. [Read more…]

Sermon of the Week:
Renewing our Strength–Into a Hopeful Future

A sermon preached for The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on November 14, 2021.

Special Music: Faithful
Hymns: Great is Thy Faithfulness
Though I May Speak

Keywords: Choose the Potato, Halloween, Questions for Church, Hopeful Future, Stewardship. #pcusa​​​​​​

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Isaiah 40:28-31
and Ephesians 1:15-23

Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-733469.
All rights reserved.

I don’t quite know if this story will work,
But I’m going to give it a go anyway.

A few weeks ago,
my wife Brook sent me an Instagram post she saw.
She doesn’t do that very often.
She’s more likely to send me funny Tiktoks of dogs being silly or something….
I almost never get Facebook or Instagram suggestions from her.
But it was the first of November
and this was an Instagram post
about Halloween the night before.
The post was making the rounds online, apparently.
Her friends had liked and commented on it,
Which is how she saw it,
And she thought I’d like it.
She told me that it might preach,
Which is something we preachers say
When we see something that carries with it
Some deeper meaning,
something that will help commend the gospel in a sermon.
This story, that news article, this commercial…
Might be funny. Might be inspiring. Might be serious.
Might be able to say something about God.
That’ll preach, we would say.
And Brook thought that this Instagram post might fit that too, somehow.

All Brook knew, I think, was that it was different.
It got boosted by a few other Instagram accounts
That post good-hearted material online.
This one was shared on Upworthy,
Where it had received 471,000 likes on November 4^th,
Just three days later.

I don’t think that Brook was aware
That I know the guy who made that original post on Instagram.
His name is Matt Schultz, and he’s a pastor up in Anchorage.
And Matt was talking about his amazing success on Halloween
Handing out treats for all the trick-or-treaters.

Matt clearly lives in a neighborhood with more children
than the neighborhood we live in.
We were delighted, this year, when we had maybe 15, 18 groups stop by
Which is a lot for us.
I think people were more eager to get out this year
Because many people didn’t go trick or treating last year
With the pandemic and Covid and all that.
Our neighborhood doesn’t have a lot of kids in the first place
But it was great to see our neighbor’s son
Dressed head to toe as their pet retriever
And some of the kids from next door
As a baseball player and ninja.
We love Halloween.
This year, like every year, we get all decorated
we put pumpkins out on the porch
and some hay bales and cobwebs and all that,
lights on, bucket of bite-size candy bars and tootsie rolls at the ready
and wait to see if any kids will come by.
For many years we had just a small handful,
three or four or five groups of kids if we were lucky.
This year was better, meaning we had more.

Now, we’ve heard of people getting cute for Halloween.
Putting toothbrushes or dental floss or an apple and such in their bucket.
We always said, oh, goodness,
they’re gonna get a trick this year for sure…
And we didn’t ever want to do that,
Wouldn’t think of it…
The kids spend their whole year waiting for the one day
They get to go around as Woody from Toy Story
and get a bucket full of candy…
We surely were going to oblige.

So when we saw Matt’s post on Instagram,
We were kind of shocked, to be honest.
The post was a picture of his treat bucket
This orange wooden basket with black paint on the front
To look like a jack-o-lantern
And It’s got all the staples in there
Snickers and Twix and Milk Duds
No Reese’s, I noticed. That’s a major fail right there Matt, my friend.

And on top of the bucket was something out of place.
It was a potato.

Yes, that’s right.
A potato.

Here’s what Matt wrote:
“Tonight, kids chose Potato more than 25 times,
Each time triumphantly proclaiming to family and friends,
‘I GOT A POTATO!’
One kid shouted, ‘A potato, just like last year!’
And another group of said,
‘Oh, you’re the potato house? You’re legends!’
This has become an unexpected and joyful tradition.
Kids are given the free choice,
And over and over again, they choose Potato.
My friends, every day you are given a choice.
I encourage you: Choose Potato.

///

So, what do you think?
Choose Potato.
Does that preach?
Yeah, I’m with you, I don’t know.
Sounds a bit odd, I agree with you.
But let’s just unpack this a bit.

Sometimes, all it takes to make someone laugh
Is to take the most ORDINARY of things
And to put them to use in unexpected ways.

That’s what most humor is, really.
Just ask my kids about all those dad jokes I like to tell.

I used to be addicted to soap
But I’m all clean now.

When does a joke become a dad joke?
When it becomes apparent.

I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon.
I’ll let you know.

But it’s also true
That it doesn’t take something extravagant to make a difference
To make a connection…
It doesn’t take a lot.
Sometimes something as mundane, as ordinary, as a potato will do.

On a night like Halloween,
With all the pageantry and the hoopla
Kids running from house to house with their glowsticks
Parents carefully watching from a few steps away
There’s kind of a routine that gets going:
Ring the door-bell.
Trick or Treat
Oh, hey there, what are you supposed to be
A rocket ship?
A football player?
A ghost?
A gumball machine?
Here, have some Candy…
Have fun, be safe, enjoy your childhood,
know we care about you….
And we wave at the parents as they walk on to the next porch.

My friend Matt offered all that too, right?
For the kids in his neighborhood
with his basket of candy…

But Matt also added something unexpected,
something earthy,
something simple:
A raw potato.

It gave the kids
A different kind of choice
And 25 kids apparently decided that they wanted THAT this year
Because it was different…
And because it was A POTATO.
Kids love potatoes.
Goodness, I love potatoes. Particularly mashed potatoes.

I don’t know when Matt started offering potatoes on Halloween
But now it’s a tradition.
And Matt was taken by that,
enough to post this online
Which isn’t his normal kind of social media post at all
He’s usually talking about homelessness in Anchorage
But that post of his was liked
by almost half a million people
people who went and checked him out, you know…
Who got to know him and his work a little bit.
And it was shared on dozens and dozens of other platforms…
All because a simple, silly, ordinary, inexpensive idea:
When you are given the choice,
Whenever you can, Choose Potato.
Happy Halloween!

///

One of the things that has been impacting the church recently
Is fear about our sustainability.

Do we have enough?
Enough people?
Enough resources?
Enough time?
Enough energy?

To which I say, yes, yes we do.
Each gift is needed and necessary and so very appreciated,
And your gift, is more appreciated than we could ever adequately express,
But sometimes we get so focused on those questions
And are worried by them,
That we don’t think about other questions
Important questions:

Do we have enough creativity?
Do we have enough compassion?
Do we have enough faithfulness?
Do we have enough love?

Those are the stuff of sustainability, too.
At least they are for a church.
Those are the questions that, honestly,
Should guide every church,
every community that seeks to follow God on the way of Jesus Christ. [Read more…]