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Submit Your Own! UM in NC By David von Schlichten Tom, What edifying corruption. Thanks! :-) Dave (ELCA in PA) Love the Title By Tom Steagald David-- I think you did a really good job with this--now, if your people react badly, tell them a UM pastor in NC corrupted your thinking! Seriously, teaching the Psalms some years ago I found so many of those kinds of invocations, desperate pleas from God's people for God to BE God to them, and God had been God to their ancestors. More than a few of the entreaties or petitions to Jesus in the Gospels can be read in much the same way--note both the Syrophoenician Woman and, immediately, the friends of the deaf mute (who could not have heard of Jesus nor asked him for a thing). These and other passages like them, and the Psalms, too, have all sorts of things to say about both intercession and prayers of petition. I think it a powerful insight to the nature of worship and prayer and I would encourage you to stay with it in your thinking, study and preaching. Sermon for December 2 on Mt. 24 and Romans 13 By David von Schlichten Unsleeper, Awake! (Word count: 658) December 2, 2007 (Matthew 24:36-44; Romans 13:11-14) Long ago, people did not generally think of gods and goddesses as all-seeing and ever-watchful. The ancient people believed that a god or goddess could be asleep, away, or just not paying attention. We Christians do not have this understanding of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No, our understanding is that God sees all, is everywhere, and is always paying attention. Psalm 121 tells us that God neither slumbers nor sleeps. Jonah tries to run away from God, but cannot. Psalm 139 declares that, no matter where we go, God is there. Jesus assures us in the last verse of Matthew that he is with us always, “[ . . . ] even to the end of the age” (v.20). At the same time, throughout the Bible we hear of believers wailing from heartbreak and fury over the apparent absence or inactivity of God. Psalm 13 laments, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” In the gospels, when the storm lashes at the disciples, they have to wake Jesus up, who is sleeping below deck despite the loud tempest. Later, Jesus himself cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God is the Unsleeper, and God is also the one who sometimes appears to be absent, indifferent, unresponsive, asleep. In the storm, Jesus, God, is actually asleep. The disciples need to wake him up. Could it be that part of the calling of the Christian is to rouse God to action? Does not Jesus teach us that we may have to be persistent in prayer? Seek and find? Knock, and the door will be opened? For whatever reason, our relationship with God demands persistence. Here in the first week of Advent, we hear from Matthew 24 Jesus urging us, the disciples, to keep awake. The cover of our bulletin reads, “Keep awake.” You and I, the saved, the baptized, the communion of saints, are to be alert for the coming of Christ, the advent of Christ. Christ can return at any time. That truth is not to drain us of hope, for the return of Christ will mean the death of sin, the Devil, and death itself. However, we are to keep awake, be alert, so that we do not stumble and fall into the tar pits of sin, death and the Devil. Be ready, stay alert. Watch out. Wear the armor of light, Paul says in our second reading from Romans. Live honorably. Do not get caught up in drunkenness, stupid, pointless bickering and fighting, foolish fleshiness. It is easy for us Christians to wander off into darkness, leaving the armor of light hanging in the closet, tumbling forward into the gooey pits. We start Advent with this agapic admonition: DO NOT FALL ASLEEP. KEEP AWAKE. Is it appropriate to say the same back to God? The Bible seems to say that it is. Abraham, Moses, the Psalmist, and the Apostles all, at various points, remind God to be God by coming to help. What if? What if, during these clangy, chattery, blingy, sugary days of holiday frenzy, we concentrated on being awake as Christians, ever wearing the armor of light? And what if, as part of being awake as Christians, we begged God to “wake up,” so to speak, and come quickly to help us? Imagine shoving aside enough of the holiday clutter to take even five minutes a day to be still and, with eyes closed and head bowed, be intensely awake. Feel the Advent. Imagine it. Imagine all of us rebelling against the frenzy long enough to be still and say, “God, I am awake. I am listening, thanking you, following you. I wear the armor of light, strong against the slings and arrows of rage and misfortune, all because of your power.” We could pray, “E'en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come. Unsleeper, awake. We walk in darkness. Wake up, God. Come help us. Now. Please.” And God will come. Advent is now. David von Schlichten, Lectionary Blog Moderator The Museum of Russian Art By David Howell While you are in the Cafe this week, browse through the The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis. The Festival of Homiletics will be held in Minneapolis, May 19-23. Click on the link below. Christ the King Sermon (Luke 23) By David von Schlichten Christ the Good Politician (Word count: 588) Sermon for Christ the King Sunday (Luke 23:33-43) This past Wednesday night, on the news was a piece in which the reporter asked people which presidential candidate they would most want to have Thanksgiving dinner with. Some said Hillary, others Rudy Guiliani, Barak Obama. A teenager said, “Stephen Colbert.” One person said, “I wouldn't want any of them over, because then I wouldn't enjoy my meal.” Many of us have that attitude about politicians, don't we? We think they are, at best, a bunch of, well, turkeys. Actually, we tend to have a darker view of politicians. The stereotype is that politicians are deceitful, corrupt fat-cats who care more about their wealth and power than about doing what is best for the people. Such an understanding is probably unfair. Politicians are people, and people almost always are a mix of good and evil. Even so, our mistrust of politicians arises from our experience of such figures disappointing us over and over. Over and over politicians have led us into wars, lied to us, made foolish choices that have hurt thousands, even millions, of people. We also recall leaders such as Mussolini and Hussein who have wielded brutal evil against countless innocent people. Through all this pain – from corrupt Communist dictators, to sadistic military leaders, to selfish, prideful presidents – Christ remains the one politician we can always trust. Christ is the king, and a king is a kind of politician. But Christ is not corrupt, deceitful, power-hungry, greedy, or sadistic. What kind of king is Christ? Is he a king who demands that we kiss his feet and moan and sing all day about how great he is? Is he the kind of king who wants us to give our money so he can have a gorgeous suit and servants to blow his nose for him? Is he the kind of king who wants to sit around and get fat off the beer and steak that come from the farms of the poor? By no means! Jesus Christ is the kind of king who hangs from the cross. As Luke tells us with words of soothing balm, Jesus the King offers us forgiveness, even when we commit sins that, at the time, we fail to realize are sins. Jesus Christ our King offers salvation to the poor criminal who, despite the priests and the soldiers and the other criminal, persists, by the power of the Spirit, to confess Christ as King. The priests mock Jesus, the soldiers mock Jesus, and the first criminal mocks him, too. The second criminal does not give in to the others. No, the Holy Spirit directs him to see and confess that Jesus truly is a king, the King. And no politician has ever uttered a sweeter and more honest promise than when Christ says, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Christ the King dies for his subjects and provides mercy for the sinner. That is the kind of politician Christ the King is. He is the Good Politician, the one who elects to lay down his life for the sheep, the subjects. Without the King, we would be slaves to sin and the Devil. On our own, we can never confess Christ as King. On our own, we hang in misery, the Devil dehydrating us, sin strangling us. We will suffocate and shrivel up. We will be finished. But the Spirit empowers us to confess Jesus as Lord. By the Spirit, we whisper, "Remember me," and the King declares, "I pardon you." 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