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Sermon
Synopses - November 2007
Sermons
at Trinity are usually ex tempore, that is done without
notes...Please
enjoy our "Sermon Synopses" or short summaries
of sermons preached at Trinity
Link
to Sermons Synopses for
additional summaries available from this year.
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Sermon for November
18, 2007
25th Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 21:5-19
In the ancient Church, said
Todd, our brothers and sisters in the faith had several “senses” through
which they read scripture: sort of like different lenses
through which they looked at scripture. There was
the literal sense – the story of Zacchaeus is about
a short tax collector whom Jesus saw and went to his house
with to eat. And then there were several “spiritual” senses – which
might say that the story of Zacchaeus is really about us,
about how we have heard of Jesus and want to see him, but
for some reason cannot easily do so; we must strain and
make effort to see Jesus; Jesus sees our efforts and rewards
us by coming to our “home” and eating with
us, and our life is forever changed.
Today’s gospel
in the literal sense is about the destruction of the Temple
in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD. In a “spiritual” sense,
it is about how the “temples” we set up within
us must necessarily fall if we are to grow and mature in
the faith.
We set up “temples” within
us: images
of who we think God is, expectations for the Church, how
we think God and we are to relate. At some point
these temples are bound to be pulled down as we grow and
change and come up against God’s reality. The
falling of an inner “temple” is never pleasant: there
will be “wars and insurrections… great earthquakes,
and in various places famines.”
Today’s gospel
lesson tells us two things: 1) Do
not be afraid; It is normal for these temples to fall down: “Do
not be terrified; for these things must take place.” And
2) Be patient: “By your endurance you will
gain your souls.” These “temples” must
fall down, said Todd, otherwise there would be no room
for something new and better to grow in its place. And, “keep
coming” to Church, said Todd. Be patient and
ride out the conflict if you would see the new thing that
God wishes to bring to birth in you.
Todd gave the example
of first graders with lots of teeth missing. (“Dropping
my son off at his first grade classroom is like being in
the locker room of the Boston Bruins. Lots of teeth
missing!”) “If
they did not lose their teeth, how could new, more mature
teeth grow in their place?” asked Todd. It
is natural for teeth to fall out; likewise, it is natural
for our “temples” to fall down, so that what
is new may come and take their places.
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Sermon
for November 11, 2007
The 24th Sunday After Pentecost
Luke 20:27-38
Today’s gospel is
the story of the Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection)
coming to Jesus with the hypothetical question of the seven
brothers all marrying the same woman, wanting to know who
would be her husband in the resurrection. “All
of us have an inner Sadducee,” said Todd. “Like
the Sadducees, we find it hard to believe in Jesus’ promise
of life eternal. Just as the Sadducees pushed away,
even antagonized, the one source who has the potential
to lead them to the life– Jesus – so do we,
too, have a tendency to antagonize and push away the Christ
who would give us life.”
Why do we have this “self-destruct” button? During
courtship, some of us tend to push away, even antagonize,
the one we would woo. During job interviews, some
of us tend to stick our foot in our mouths, sabotaging
our attempt to get a job. As teens, we tended to
push away our parents, whose love and attention we so desperately
craved. Do we do press this “self-destruct” button
because we fear love and competence? Because we don’t
want to rise up to be the person the other sees in us? Because
we fear that the other will discover in us the true, hurting,
less-than-competent person we know ourselves to be? “I
don’t know,” said Todd.
Notice Jesus’ response to the Sadducees. Jesus
did not say, “I can’t believe how stupid your
question is.” (And he well might have. It
was a pretty ludicrous question!) Jesus did not get
angry at their disbelief. He did not speak down to
them or demean them. Jesus just told them the truth. There
are many things about Christianity that we probably question: the
virgin birth, the miracles, that the Eucharist is Jesus’ body
and blood, etc. “It is OK to question,” said
Todd. Jesus will not react negatively to our questioning,
no matter if it is antagonistic. Jesus can take
our questioning and antagonism. “I suspect
that Jesus might have answered the Sadducees’ questions
all day” if he needed to, said Todd. “And
he will continue to answer our questions, if we keep asking
them.”
The Sadducees’ one great shortcoming, Todd said,
is to be found in the verse that immediately follows today’s
passage: “They no longer dared to ask him another
question.” By not daring to ask Jesus another
question, the Sadducees cut the conversation short, they
ceased to engage and reach out, they closed the door to
Jesus’ truth and healing touch. “Keep
asking the questions,” said Todd. “Keep
the conversation going. Keep open the engagement
with Christ.”
Todd closed with a quote
from Rainer Maria Rilke:
“Have patience with everything that is unresolved
in your heart and try to love the questions themselves… Live
the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in
the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.”
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Sermon
for All Saints’ Sunday, 2007
Todd began by speaking
of heroes, and mentioned several of the heroes from his
childhood and early adulthood (teachers, coaches, priests). “All of us have heroes,
no matter how old we are,” said Todd. “The
reason we respond to heroes,” said Todd, “is
because we recognize something of ourselves in a hero. Our
heroes tell us who is inside of us, waiting to get out.”
Todd told of how the saints
in the Church’s calendar – whom
we remember today on All Saints’ Sunday – represent
the Church’s heroes. “Just as with our
own heroes, we would not recognize the Church’s heroes
as such if we didn’t have something of these heroes
in ourselves.” The Church’s saints tell
us who we are, what we have inside of us waiting to get
out. All of us have something of a St. Elizabeth
of Hungary (generous to the poor), a St. Martin of Tours
(gave his cloak to a beggar), the Martyrs of Japan (willing
to give our lives to a worthy cause), Martin Luther King,
Jr. (want to establish a just society) inside of us.
“The
great work of the Church is to produce more saints, to bring
out these inner heroes from within each of us.” The
path the Church provides is the time-tested, well-worn, three-fold
discipline of Eucharist, Daily Office and personal prayer. “Continue
faithfully on this path, and you will be safe,” said
Todd. “And you will begin to uncover, bit by
bit, the great saint that is inside you, just waiting to
get out.”
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