TLLC Wednesday Evening Sermon

Our Lent Misweek Worship Service tonight features "The Holden Evening Prayer". Presenting the Homily is  Deacon Bri Morris-Brock. 

Please enjoy this service and reflect.

Wednesday Lenten Sermon Series - An Altar in the World: Practice NOT Perfect 

 Generally  people think benedictions are only in the purview of clergy, but right now the world and each of us are probably craving a sense of blessing.  The most ordinary things are drenched in the divine. Pronouncing blessing on them is the least we can do. Of course the key to blessing them is to receive the blessing they offer us first.

Wednesday Lenten Sermon Series - An Altar in the World: Practice NOT Perfect 

See below for a series description.   Most of us don’t have to carry water. In fact, most of us live in a culture that devalues physical labor.  This week we practice serving physically to see that hauling brush, doing laundry, picking up trash, and yes carrying water are holy practices just as much as prayer or fasting.

 

An Altar in the World: Practice NOT Perfect

In An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor takes twelve ordinary experiences of human life and invites us to see them as spiritual practices. What if our spirituality was shaped not only by prayer, and worship, and sacraments – but also by getting lost, and paying attention, and in physical labor? What if our spirituality was shaped not by a quest for perfection but rather by continual practice? “My hope,” she writes, “is that reading [this book] will help you recognize some of the altars in the world – ordinary-looking places where human beings have met and may continue to meet up with the divine More that they sometimes call God

An Altar in the World: Practice NOT Perfect

In An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor takes twelve ordinary experiences of human life and invites us to see them as spiritual practices. What if our spirituality was shaped not only by prayer, and worship, and sacraments – but also by getting lost, and paying attention, and in physical labor? What if our spirituality was shaped not by a quest for perfection but rather by continual practice? “My hope,” she writes, “is that reading [this book] will help you recognize some of the altars in the world – ordinary-looking places where human beings have met a

Wednesday Lenten Sermon Series - An Altar in the World: Practice NOT Perfect 

In a culture that measures worth by how busy we are, the discipline of Sabbath simply begins with the practice of saying, “No!” It is impossible to say, “Yes,” to God without saying, “No,” to God’s rivals. When we say no to other things for a whole day, an hour, or even a few minutes we are testing the premise that we are more than we can produce.  We test the theology that even if we spend the whole day being “good for nothing” we would still be good enough for God.

Since God knows us and what we need and want, it seems difficult to know what to pray for or about.  In this brief message about being present to God, we will look at the ways in which God is already present in the world and we are present to that world through God's eyes.  Building an altar in the world means that we see God present in all places.  Our job, then, is simply to be awake and aware.

Wednesday Lenten Sermon Series - An Altar in the World: Practice NOT Perfect 

Ash Wednesday may seem like an unusual ritual, but it is an important part of our Christian practice.  In a culture that calls us to perfection, Ash Wednesday speaks the truth of our need of grace. In a culture that markets a false immortality, Ash Wednesday speaks the truth of our dying… and our rising … through Christ. We need the practice of Ash Wednesday not because we can ever perfect it, but because we are ever in need of a reminder of God’s promises.  God promises grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace, love - in short, God promises life. And God’s promise outlasts our bodies, all our efforts at self-improvement, and even time itself. God’s promise is this: at the other end of this ashy cross is an empty cross.

Transfiguration  

Transfiguration Sunday is a bridge between the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle that comes to a close and the Lent-Easter cycle that begins on Ash Wednesday. On a high mountain Jesus is revealed as God’s beloved Son, echoing the words at his baptism. This vision of glory sustains Jesus as he faces his impending death in Jerusalem. This vision of the one we follow sustains us as we turn this week to Ash Wednesday and our yearly baptismal journey of following him into the wilderness of Lent. For the light of Christ’s Transfiguration, transfigures us as well.

How do we discern what and who is better or best? Who is the most right? What if instead of squabbling we leaned into the foundation that God built for us, and instead of thinking who’s right... we just did the work.

How do we recognize the spirit of God? How do we recognize the spirit of the world? It is hard to tell what is God and what is the world, hard to tell when God is close to us and when it seems as though God is far away.

Wanting a sign from God, or God to make sense by conventional wisdom is as old as time. But the signs and wisdom that God offers us we over look because it seems foolish to our eyes. Wisdom like vulnerability, or relationship.