Douglass Church - Douglass Blvd Christian Church

Rev. Chuck Lewis in the pulpit today, speaking on the importance of radiating the light of God in a world that sleeps. Subscribe to us on iTunes!

You get to choose how you’ll view the world, to whom and what kind of attention you’ll give. Nobody is the boss of how you choose to act but you. No one can tell you what to do about the kind of love you offer to others. The whole “you’re-not-the-boss-of-me” thing is always about power. You just don’t have to give yours away." Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say as he unveils the vision statement of the reign of God. He doesn’t say, 'I’m announcing a kingdom where everybody who gets their theology right, who demonstrates a sufficient level of personal piety, and who manages to muster up the appropriate level of faith in me … will get a comfy split-level with walk-in closets and an in-ground pool in the hereafter.' He says 'The word I’m envisioning, the shape of the kingdom I’m announcing is going to feel like bizarro world—a world where the hungry will finally be filled, where the poor will no longer be left to fight over the scraps left by those who want for nothing, where the dispirited and the broken-hearted will not have to languish on the margins. A world where the last shall be first and the first shall be last.' Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

What if Jesus showed up around here and said, 'Let down your nets, things are fixin’ to get interesting?' Would we hear that as good news? What if Jesus said, 'I’ve got something for you to do, but it’s not anything like you were expecting?' Would we find ourselves rolling around on the bottom of the boat, telling Jesus to go someplace else? Or would we look at who shows up as a gift? The people nobody else has any time and space for? Are those the people God wants to put in our path because they’re just the kind people Jesus was notorious for hanging out with?"” Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

Coming to terms with our own privilege is a tricky thing. In my experience, most people resent the idea that they’ve somehow been given a leg up. But the problem with our privilege has less to do with what we’ve been given than with what we’re willing to sacrifice so that others can have the same advantages we do. From God’s perspective, from the perspective of the new world Jesus is painting as he begins his ministry, the walls have been torn down so there’s no 'us' and 'them,' no 'insider' and no 'outsider,' no 'hometown folks' and no 'aliens.' There are only God’s children and the joy of the responsibility of announcing liberation from the tyranny of our own sense of entitlement. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

The need to cry out on behalf of people who feel like their world is about to chew them up didn’t die with Isaiah and the children of Israel. There are still people—many who live here among us—who urgently want someone to take their side, to refuse to remain silent in the face of despair and injustice—not so much as a white knight coming in to save the day, but often just as a reminder that they’re not the ones always left holding the bag by themselves. Part of what it means to follow Jesus is to take our place upon the walls with Isaiah, refusing to remain silent, giving God no rest until God establishes the reign God promised and makes it renowned throughout the earth. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

The question for those of us committed to following in the steps of the magi, and ultimately in the steps of Jesus is: When we spot the old world trying to stamp out the new, the powerful trying to subdue the powerless, will we take the easy way and acquiesce to the whims of a tyrant, or will we resist? Bethlehem—and the gospel toward which it points—is the focal point of the politics of empire. Don't kid yourself. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

We were important enough to God that God had it figured out from the beginning how to bring us home. We, therefore, if we are to be like God, must devote ourselves to the prospect of making a home for one another—both the kind we live in, as well as the kind that lives in us. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc

Merry Christmas! We’re blessed to have Rev. Teresa Pecinovsky sharing from the pulpit today about the importance of lament. Subscribe to us on iTunes!

The question posed by Advent is: How do we who live at the front of the line make Mary's song our song? Ironic that we, whom most of the rest of the world envies, might have to sit at the feet of Mary and Elizabeth to learn how to sing the song God gave all of us to sing about the reign of the coming messiah, a song for the humiliated and disposable people sung in anticipation of Emmanuel—God with us. Subscribe to us on iTunes! Sermon text: web | doc