"podcast" Tagged Sermons (Page 109)

At this time of the year, we often go out of our way to spend time with important people. We pause to give thanks and celebrate. Yet, in our human attempts to be everything to everyone we often over promise and under deliver. We say that we’ll attend the work party and don’t; we pledge to not talk about politics until we do; and we make grandiose promises only to let others down. As humans, we have a tendency say more than we act on. After all, it’s easy to note that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims in Las Vegas or Sutherland Spring. We are quick to grieve for the devastation in Puerto Rico and Texas only to forget their continued struggle. When we see climate change we promise to take our consumption seriously, until we fall into the consumerism of Christmas. Yet, the true Christmas story is one where words and actions are united…

       Mark’s gospel is frustrating. The beginning is odd and the ending, well, the ending isn’t really an ending at all. Throughout this liturgical year, we’ll try to figure out if the Jesus we “know” is Mark’s Jesus. You see, each of the four Gospel’s take a different approach to Jesus. We just finished working through Matthew who went out of his way to hammer home that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and the new Moses. Yet, Mark takes a different approach. And we know Mark is going to be different from the second verse when we hear of the prophets. With our attention on the prophets, we meet John the Baptist, and we notice that he acts, talks, and dresses like, well, a prophet from the Hebrew Scriptures…