Jesus — Page 5

October 16, 2016 ~ “I Confess – Standing Where the Lord Stands” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

I Confess: Standing Where the Lord Stands.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on October 16, 2016.

Then Jesus told them a parable
about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

He said,
‘In a certain city there was a judge
a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.
And in that city there was a widow
who kept coming to the judge saying,
“Grant me justice against my opponent.”

For a while he refused; but later he said to himself,
“Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,
yet because this widow keeps bothering me,
I will grant her justice,
so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’

And the Lord said,
‘Listen to what the unjust judge says.
And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones
who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long in helping them?

I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.
And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

And may God bless our reading
and our understanding
and our applying these words, to how we live our lives. Amen.

///
Jesus speaks most powerfully to us when he speaks in Parables
These quirky, pointed, imaginative stories that Jesus weaves.

These parables of Jesus are perhaps the best examples of
how Jesus is a teacher:
trying to help us learn about who God is and what God is doing.

You’ll note that Jesus rarely lectures.
He doesn’t offer three points and an illustration.

Instead, he chooses these little stories.

The parables are all about the Kingdom of God that Jesus gives witness to.
A reality where God’s values are our values
God’s concerns, are our concerns.

In this Kingdom,
we learn who are neighbor is, and that we’re asked to care for her
when she is wounded, when she is hurting
even when others cross the street
to avoid the shame or the blame of doing so.

In this Kingdom,
we learn that God keeps the light on,
even for the child who has left for another country, another Kingdom
squandering all the wealth of his inheritance
and that when the child returns, if the wayward child returns
that God, with such a wild, overflowing, prodigal love
runs to greet him and throws a party
and cries tears of joy for the lost one newly found.

In this Kingdom,
we learn that a widow presses her concerns for justice
and she presses
and she presses
and she presses….for she knows that righteousness is on her side
and unlike this realm
where judges may not care for justice
may not attend to truth
may only relent due to pressure or weariness or prudence
in God’s realm, says our text for the day
God will not delay
not in God’s new world.

///
Jesus speaks most powerfully to us when he speaks in Parables. [Read more…]

August 28, 2016 “Fearless Faith – I Am Going to Be Okay” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

Fearless Faith: I Am Going To Be Ok.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on August 28, 2016.
The third in a sermon series on Facing our Fears through a Life of Faith.

Psalm 23
and Matthew 6:24-34

This sermon series is called Fearless Faith,
and we’re exploring through different lenses
why our Holy Scriptures keep telling us
not to fear
and particularly how we are prone
to struggle with that encouragement.

Last week we talked about love
and about how Love is, at the root of it,
an OPENING of the heart
to the care and the concern
and the wellbeing and the freedom of another.

We talked about how love is all about risk
and about how risk is scary
but we’re called to accept that risk
for the sake of those we love
like God does for each one of us.

Last week was all about those people we love
This week we’re going to look at ourselves,
and our fears and our anxieties about our own wellbeing.
And then we’ll explore
other realities of life that make all of this so complicated.

For now, in addition to the beautiful words of the twenty-third Psalm
we have for our reflection this passage from the Gospel of Matthew
where Jesus is teaching about worry.

I invite you to open your heart and your mind
to this reading of God’s word:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or what you will drink,
or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more than food,
and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air;
they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they?

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

And why do you worry about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they neither toil nor spin,
yet I tell you,
even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field,
which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,
will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry,
saying, “What will we eat?”
or “What will we drink?”
or “What will we wear?”

For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things;
and indeed your heavenly Father knows
that you need all these things.

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.
‘So do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.

Today’s trouble is enough for today.

And may God bless to us our reading
and our understanding
and our applying of these words, to the way we live. Amen.

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If you grew up in this country
anytime after 1952,
and especially if you were a boy,
you may remember reading Mad Magazine.[1]

The magazine was certainly sarcastic, and irreverent.
It could be crude, and slightly risqué,
certainly by the standards of a few decades ago.

On the cover of almost every issue, there would be a picture
of Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of the magazine. [Read more…]

Sermon: I Confess–Standing Where the Lord Stands

Sermon: Fearless Faith–I Am Going to Be Ok