March 11, 2018 – “God the Giver” from John Knox Kirk – The Kirk of KC on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on March 11, 2018.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Ephesians 2:4-10
and John 3:14-21

There’s so much here:
Judgment
Forgiveness
Love
Salvation
Belief
Light
Darkness.

Honestly: there are enough abstractions and big ideas in these few verses
To last us a lifetime.

The words are all tangled and woven together,
And when those here who are the concrete thinkers among us
try to make sense of them,
our eyes glaze over.

We’re trying to introduce our kids to some classics of 1980s cinema
Yesterday’s selection was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
And there is this scene
Where a history teacher is lecturing on 1930s economics
the impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act
In making the great depression even worse

And the teacher is trying to engage his students
In 1930, the Republican Controlled House of Representatives
In an effort to alleviate the effects of the….
   Anyone? Anyone?
  The Great Depression
   Passed the….
    Anyone? Anyone?
   The Tariff Bill.
   The Hawley-Smoot Tariff act which
     Anyone? Anyone?
          Raised or Lowered?
    Raised Tariffs…

And as actor Ben Stein is delivering this impassioned lecture
Director John Hughes pans to various students in his class

With vacant looks and glazed over eyes

Its so painful, that moment.

No wonder Ferris wanted to ditch out of school.

Here’s where the pastor jokes
that he sure hopes you don’t find yourselves feeling that way
during one of his longer sermons.

///
Sometimes, we just want it all boiled down to something simple, right?

Maybe that’s why we tend to focus on one verse of this text
and hold onto it like a mantra. [Read more…]

February 25, 2018 – “The Gift of Plain Talk” from John Knox Kirk – The Kirk of KC on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on February 25, 2018.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16
and Mark 8: 31-38

Mark, as we have noted before, is impatient.
It feels, as you read this Gospel, that he’s in a HURRY to tell the story
To get it down on paper, to record it so that it can be shared
And read and made a part of the life of the reader, too.

There’s a reason for that.
We think Mark wrote this Gospel during a time of major upheaval

Right around when the Temple was destroyed by the Roman Authorities.

He was the first one to write a Gospel. It hadn’t been done before.
So Mark needed to get the story written down,
Because he was worried that the oral tradition that had been telling that story
Might not make it much longer.

So, for Mark, there are no additional details, no rhetorical flourishes.
Its all plain talk.
And, in a way, his portrayal of Jesus adopts this same urgency.

There’s a gift, in that plain talk.
Sometimes, we use all these extra words to soften a conversation
To make it easier for us to absorb.
If the subject matter is touchy, sometimes those extra words
Are a way to protect us from hurting feelings.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
And all that…

But often that’s a luxury that we can’t quite afford.
That flourish allowing us to distract from what is really going on.

The plain talk of Jesus is particularly clear
In today’s text.

It’s a tough text.

Jesus has been healing and teaching, as he and his cohort are
Ministering in the villages of Caesarea Philippi
Walking slowly towards Jerusalem

Listen to this reading from the Gospel According to Mark:

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man
must undergo great suffering,
and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed,
and after three days rise again.

³²He said all this quite openly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 
³³But turning and looking at his disciples,
he rebuked Peter and said,
‘Get behind me, Satan!
For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them,
‘If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 

³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake,
and for the sake of the gospel,
will save it. 

³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world
and forfeit their life? 
³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words 
in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed
when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

And May God Bless our Reading
And our Understanding
And our Applying of THESE words, to how we live our lives.

///
Several years ago, I attended a high school play.
It was really well done—the cast was on a roll and had the play down perfectly.
The first act sailed by effortlessly.
It was a comedy—one of those plays where it felt like every line landed.
Lots of laughter.

But, in the middle of the second act…
…one of the actors forgot his lines.

You could see on his face that he knew it was his turn to speak,
but he COULDN’T find the words.

Well…everybody became quite anxious.
…The director was just about the whisper the line to him,
when suddenly, he spoke. [Read more…]