SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT 2016 GENESIS 15:1-12You know the problem with stars? Many of them may not actually be there. It’s a crazy thought, isn’t it? But it’s quite possible that some of those twinkling balls of fiery gas could have burned themselves out millions of years ago, and we don’t even know it yet. It looks like they truly exist, but the light that will reach your eyes tonight when you gaze into the sky – that light left some of those stars millions of years ago. There’s one star in particular. It is romantically named MACS0647-JD, which is what you get when you ask a science major to name something, rather than an English major. MACS0647-JD is 13.3 billion light-years away, so in theory it could have died 13 billion years ago and it will be another 300 million years before we know it. But there it is, shining away, maybe lying to us, possibly claiming to be something when it isn’t.

You know the problem with stars? We wish upon them, we fall in love under them, we lie beneath them plumbing the depth of our imaginations below their comforting blanket, they stir us to dream. Yet all they are is balls of hydrogen. Hardly the stuff of poetry, the grist for wonder. Sailors tell the time by them, explorers steer a course by them. Stars seduce mariners, reminding them of their loved ones at home, cheering them with thoughts of safe harbor, comforting them in the nostalgic night. These astral friends are reliable, constant, dependable. Even if they may not actually be there. You know the problem with stars? You can’t visit them. You can’t touch them, taste them, hear them, or smell them. You can’t stand on them. The problem with stars is you have to take them on faith. You have to trust them, believing that they won’t let you down. Believing that they exist even though you can’t prove it.

You know the problem with stars? You can’t count them. Even if....... (Read the full Sermon here: Count the Stars If You Can.pdf )