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Revised and Expansive: A Sermon on the Reign of Christ

11/20/2016

 
Text: Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-23, 27-28 then 31:31-34
Preached by Rev. Kerri Parker​, Sunday November 20, 2016

Justice-loving, Still-Speaking God: grant us the grace to hear and make sense of the challenging words presented to us by holy scripture and the work of the Spirit.  May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen

What’s a preacher to do when the scripture for the day – several weeks in a row - cuts a little too close to what’s going on in the world?  The same thing one does any other Sunday:  preach the text.  Preach the Gospel. We are people of faith.  And if we shy away from our sacred stories because they bear an uncomfortable word, then we are no better than the king who fed a scroll bearing forty years’ worth of prophetic words into the flames.
 
This is the Word the Spirit has brought to the church this day:  a perilous time, when the nation is under threat.  The Prophet Jeremiah under house arrest, confined, prevented from gathering with God’s people. God’s word snatched from Baruch’s hand - and in a section we skipped over for length today - God’s prophets had to go into hiding.  The scroll with these holy, subversive words taken to the palace and read in private quarters amid the king’s closest advisers, and then deliberately, section by section, consigned to the fire.  Burned because the king did not like what he was hearing.  Because he wanted to suppress the message being spread by the prophet.
 
What we have in today’s scripture is tantamount to a book burning.  We’re not talking about a single speech here. We are talking about a scroll containing forty years of Jeremiah’s life’s work - his heart and soul, everything God had given him for the good of the nation of Israel, the shining days and the terrible days and everything in between.  A masterwork, destroyed.
 
It would be easy, after such a disaster, to give up. It would be natural — particularly for Jeremiah, who was already prone to depression, and lived in difficult times — to give in to the inner voice of doom.  To stand there in judgment, shaking one’s head, saying, “I told you so.”  Worse: to entertain fantasies of revenge, as if salvation is to be found there. 
 
But the prophet doesn’t give up, although it would have been so easy to do so.   Instead, he stayed rooted in his call, offering us a model of faithful resistance to a world that just wants to get back to normal when it’s everything but business as usual:  
 
First, the prophet speaks the word given by God.  Over and over again, the prophet spoke the words.  Sometimes it offended people.  But he kept going.   Then, the prophet passes the word on to others, so they are equipped to share it.  When Jeremiah couldn’t go himself, Jeremiah taught Baruch.  Baruch wrote it down so it could be shared.  And Baruch spoke it in the temple. 
 
And then - I love this part - when the powers of this world try to shut down the transmission of God’s word (because when does that ever work, people?) - the prophet steps up again.  This is when God germinates the seeds of the Word that are planted in the weary heart of the prophet, and it cracks wide open again.  You may think you have seen it all and done it all and by all that is holy you are tired, but the word of the Lord comes to you and here it comes again:
 
“Write down all the words that were in the first scroll that was burned.”

Write down all of the words...and more.   The scroll was burned.  The powerful ones shut it down.  Has the message been lost? No. Just delayed. Write the revised and expanded edition, God says.[1] They're not going to like hearing this one any better, but it’s still worth saying.  Justice is justice. Write it. Speak it.  Send My Word forth, instructs God — so the prophet continues to raise the uncomfortable questions before the nation as a whole, not neglecting to confront the powerful, not neglecting to speak in the public square:
 
Do you treat each other justly? Do you follow the Lord’s ways?
Stop taking advantage of the immigrant, orphan, or widow.
Stop shedding the blood of the innocent,…
going after other gods to your own ruin…[2]
 
And are you caring for God’s creation?
 
“I will weep and wail for the mountains,
and lament for the grazing lands in the wilderness.
They are dried up and deserted;
no sound of the flocks is heard;
no sign of birds or animals is seen;
all have vanished.”[3]
 
Are the rich and powerful growing fat and sleek,
prospering, indifferent to the plight of the orphan, the rights of the poor?[4]
 
From the least to the greatest, all are eager to profit.
From prophet to priest, all trade in falsehood.
they treat the wound of my people as if were nothing:
“All is well, all is well,” they insist, when in fact nothing is well.”[5]
 
Do you treat the worker with justice?
And do you allow room, in your economic life
for rest, as God commanded?[6]
 
And to whom do you give supremacy?
 
“The Lord is the true God!
He’s the living God and the everlasting King!”[7]
 
“God made the earth by his might;
he shaped the world by his wisdom,
crafted the skies by his knowledge.”[8]
 
“Stop at the crossroads and look around; ask for the ancient paths. 
Where is the good way? Then walk in it.”[9]

 
It is words such as these the prophet carried to the nation, which had him banned from the temple, confined, his words burned, and eventually killed in exile.  It is words such as these which Jesus used to confront the powers of his time, words that got him killed.
 
Today is Reign of Christ Sunday, when we remember who rules supreme.  When we remember the kingdom - or kindom - to which we belong.   
 
We are in the middle of a challenging time in the life of our nation, and a challenging run of texts from the Hebrew Prophets, to be followed by a challenging run of texts about the imminent arrival of Jesus, Emmanuel, God-With-Us.  We may come to church looking for comfort.  But the comfort in the Gospel is inseparable from its challenge, inseparable from Christ’s claim upon our lives. 
 
Our Christian life leads from font, to table, to cross:  We baptized a baby last week, and set her on the road to discipleship.  Remember all the things we said about the water:  water is washing, and soothing, and slaking thirst, and drowning.  It is death and it is life.  Remember all the things we say at the communion table:  it is a meal, where we nourish our bodies, where we celebrate the great banquet where none are excluded, where there is always enough, and it is also a funeral meal, where we remember that it is a gift offered to those Christ already knows will abandon him before he dies.  Even the first resurrection story is filled with challenge, more than comfort.
 
King Jehoiakim wants to enjoy his comfortable winter chambers by the firepit.  The nation would like it very much if things could get back to normal.  It’s a lovely dream; but that’s all “normal” ever was, a dream.  Because “comfort” was only comfortable for some, and “peace” only “peace” for some.  To abandon them for our own comfort is to abandon the Gospel.
 
Prophets, attend!  We have been given a Word for our time.  Though there may be those in our nation who say, "Hush! Your Word disturbs our peace," and urge us to quiet ourselves, we are called to proclaim it again, more boldly.  
 
For here is the way our God works: never settling for a retread of the past, but going beyond, calling us to speak and work for the revised, expansive vision of human community, a community ruled according to kindness, justice, and righteousness.
 
“I am the Lord who acts with kindness,
justice, and righteousness 
in the world,
and I delight in these things,
declares the Lord.”[10]
 
God is writing the revised and expansive edition.

​It’s gonna take a while. There’s still time to get involved.  Prophets, are you in?
 
Amen.



[1] Jeremiah 36:32
[2] Jeremiah 7:5-6
[3] Jeremiah 9:10
[4] Jeremiah 5:28
[5] Jeremiah 8:10-11
[6] Jeremiah 17:19-24
[7] Jeremiah 10:10
[8] Jeremiah 10:12
[9]  Jeremiah 6:16
[10]
 Jeremiah 9:24

An Uncomfortable Call - A Holy Moment: A Sermon for Prophets

11/14/2016

 
Preached November 13, 2016, the Sunday after the US Presidential Election
Text:  Isaiah 6:1-8 (Isaiah's Call and Sending)
The holiest places we are privileged to walk are where another person entrusts to us their deep gladness or deep grief.  Heaven and earth meet when we are called to attend to one another.  If you listen carefully, you might hear the fluttering of wings, as the angels hasten to cover their eyes to grant a tender moment its due.  Given an especially challenging situation, you may perceive the searing of a hot coal on your lips as you consider what words to speak into the sacred space.   You have been granted entrance to the Holy of Holies: a tender place in the human soul.
 “Woe is me,” says the prophet.  “For I am a person of unclean lips, and I come from a people of unclean lips.” You consider carefully. What will be suspended in the air between you and this fellow child of God?  What word could be true enough, and faithful; adequate to the gift of revelation that has been unfolded before you?  For such access is not granted lightly.  It comes only when there is something so great that the weight of it cannot be carried by one human soul.  When it takes a second - a soul-friend - to shoulder the load - it is an honor and a privilege to be invited across the threshold.  
 Now and then, a tight-knit community is invited to step across.  But sometimes, an entire nation or a world is unwillingly pushed across a threshold.  These are not comfortable moments.  Then again, prophets’ call stories seldom are.   

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Spooky Story Countdown / UNICEF Noisy Offering

11/1/2016

 
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On Sunday, October 30th, worship was a little out of the ordinary (even for MUCC!) as we got into the spirit of Halloween with costumes, spooky stories from the Bible, some eerie-sounding tunes from our songbooks and a special noisy offering for UNICEF.

​
We taught a table grace to the tune of the Addams family theme song. We've had several requests for the lyrics, so here they are! Try it out at home - and don't forget to snap!

Da-da-da-dum (snap snap) - Da da da da dum (snap snap)
Da da da dum, da da da dum, da da da dum (snap snap)

We thank you for our food, Lord,
For families, friends, and you Lord,
We thank you for our food, Lord,
and for our family.

Amen (snap snap) - Amen (snap snap)
Amen, Amen, Amen (snap snap)

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Our ten spooky stories were:
​
#10 A Spirit from Beyond - 1 Samuel 28:3-25
#9 Terrifyingly Ravenous Monsters - Revelation 12 and 13:1-10
#8 Dancing Skeletons - Ezekiel 37: 1-14
#7 A River of Blood (and other terrors) - Exodus 7:1-25
#6 The Writing on the Wall - Daniel 5:1-30
#5 Chained in A Graveyard  Mark 5:1-13
#4 The Walking Dead - John 11:1-44
#3 Drop-Dead Afraid - Acts 5:1-11
#2 Breaking into a Tomb - Mark 16:1-8
#1 An Unexpected Apparition - John 20:19-29

If you took home an orange box to Trick or Treat for UNICEF or would like to contribute to our church gift to UNICEF, please bring in your contribution the first week of November; there's a quick turnaround time to pass them along as part of the annual UNICEF campaign.

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5710 Anthony Street, McFarland WI 53558

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Office Phone:  (608) 838-9322  
​​Office Email: office@mcfarlanducc.org

Pastor Bryan Sirchio
Pastor Email: pastorb@mcfarlanducc.org
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