Category Archive

The very name of the book of Genesis implies that it is the beginning of something. It is the genesis of the biblical story. But it is much more than just a beginning, specifically the early chapters of the book. They are not just the start of a story. They serve as a foundation for everything that follows.

We get how to do a service on Sunday morning. The problem is when that worship on Sunday morning doesn’t match the life of the worshipper on Monday morning or Friday night, in the workplace, in the home, at a political rally.

The readings from today, especially the Revelation passage, invite us to think about the Kingdom of God from the opposite perspective. We are going to think about the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God and then read back to our own story.

The story of the exodus became the cultural moment that the people used time and again to understand their past and present with God. When they faced times of trouble they remembered the time that YHWH had delivered them and prayed that he would act in such a way again.

You may have noticed over the last two years here at Arbor House, that we don’t celebrate a lot of holidays. Perhaps a better way to put it is, we are very particular in what holidays that we do celebrate.

I have been reading a lot about Cain and Abel recently. I have been reading about them because that is the topic of my master’s thesis. As a grad student there is nothing that we like to talk about more than our master’s thesis and there is nothing that everyone hates more than hearing a grad student talk about their master’s thesis. So I will save all the boring details for another time.

Scripture is like a rearview mirror. We can look back at the history of God and humanity and their acts. The question we then have to wrestle with is, how does this look back relate to where are now? How do the lessons that we discern from the history of God and humanity, relate to our present?

The church year can be split into two mirrored halves. They both follow the same rhythm. The rhythm starts with a season of waiting and preparation, Advent and Lent, where we are expectant of the high holy days that are to come.

Twenty centuries later, the world still swells in the weeks before Christmas. I’m not talking about the fact that Target has Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes available in late October or the fact that those obligatory Santa Claus pictures are taken at shopping malls all across the country.

Listen to this sermon: