9.25.11--Learning a Hard Lesson from David (Sermon on 2 Samuel 12:1-23)

In H.G. Well’s classic, The Time Machine, a genius scientist does the seemingly impossible—he invents a machine capable of moving forward and backward through time. Now, I must admit to you that I watched the 2002 movie that was only loosely based on the book years before I actually got around to reading the literally timeless novel, and, honestly, there are parts of the story line that I like better in the film adaption.

The main change in the storyline between the novel and film is the protagonist’s reasoning behind building his time machine. In the book, he builds it solely out of scientific drive and curiosity. In the movie, he builds it in hope of reuniting with his love, who died years before on the day he proposed to her.

Isn’t it interesting how much of our cultural imagination is wrapped up in mastering time? Throughout the media mediums are stories and musings that focus on people trying to go back in time to change something from their past, or trying to go to the future to see how things work out for them if they follow a certain path. We want to have control of every aspect of our lives, and we want to know that we made the best possible decision that we could in every instance.

In The Time Machine, though, the protagonist learns that no matter what he does to try to change the past, no matter how many times he saves his fiancé from the doom awaiting her in the future, it only prolongs the inevitable. Every time she is rescued from one fate, she falls into the hands of another fatal accident.

Even with a time machine, he cannot change the past.

9.18.11--Shattering the Box

Friends, can I be honest with you? Some Disney movies freak me out. I mean, think about it. In the Little Mermaid, a giant octopus witch steals the souls of living, sentient beings and little kids are subjected to watching a chef try to boil a crab while it is still alive. In Sleeping Beauty, a girl in a coma is awakened by a strange man and then attacked by a green dragon. In Snow White, a young woman’s stepmother tries to first strangle and then poison her just because she’s beautiful!

These stories are scary! These stories are cruel! And we hide it all behind cute Disney animation, which makes it all alright.

But you know what the worse one of the bunch is? Alice in Wonderland. The story is nuts. A girl chases a rabbit into its home and ends up in the Disney version of the Twilight Zone. There, she drinks strange concoctions out of strange containers, eats strange foods, meets animals and fairytale creatures who talk to her, and is sentenced to death by a queen who rules over a deck of playing cards.

Messed up.

9.11.11--Scouts and Kings

When I turned 16, my dad worked out a deal with Papa, my grandpa on my mom’s side, to buy one of his ranch cars for Tomas, Ben and I to drive. It was a tan 1964 Scout International that Papa had bought from the dump and had fixed up to running condition. And with the little bit of extra money my parents could pull together, they bought it for us. This 4-speed hunk of metal was as unappealing to my teenage mind as cars could get, and I couldn’t believe that Dad would get me this instead of helping me buy a truck. So I started saving my money up until I had enough to afford the down payment on a Dodge Ram, the vehicle that, to this day, I consider being my first car.

I hated the Scout. It was a piece of work. The gas meter didn’t work, so we had to keep track of how much gas we put in it and when or we could easily find ourselves stranded without gas. You had to bypass 1^st gear when you started it because it would automatically stall if you didn’t. The radio and air only worked half of the time. And about 75% of the time, you had to get it rolling down a hill to get it started in the first place. The only good thing about it in my 16-year-old opinion was that it had a solid steel frame, so if I hit anything, my tank and I were going to be just fine.

9.9.11--Homily for Wilson-Kohlmayer Wedding

Brothers and sisters, friends and family, James and Dana. We are here to celebrate a wonderful thing, to witness to the joining of two souls under God. Could there be a better place to be right now?

           

Dana and James, I haven’t known you for very long, but it is more than evident to me and everyone here that what you have is special and worth celebrating. You two are bound together by an unbreakable bond: love. Love is the manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit in God’s creation. From the beginning, we were created out of an outpouring of love for the purpose of loving. God loved Adam and Eve enough to create a world specifically for them. God loved the Israelite people enough to deliver them from the hands of the Egyptians. God loved us enough to send God’s only Son to die for our sins and to live again that we might live in Him, and God loves us enough to continually bless us even now.

But in God’s infinite wisdom, God knew that for us to fully experience that love, we would have to be able to give it as well as receive it. Just as tasting a freshly baked cookie is much different than cooking one, for us to truly experience the breadth of God’s love for us, we had to be able to give love to others. That is why from the beginning of creation, humanity was made to be in relationship, that is why we have been built with the capacity and need to love and be loved by others. And so we hear Adam’s heartfelt outpouring to Eve when he calls her “Bone of my bone; flesh of my flesh.”

9.4-Where You Go I Will Go

Well, we are gearing up for one of my favorite times of year: football season. College ball kicked off last week and pro starts this week. I can’t wait! As a Texan, you can probably guess where my allegiances lie. Now, college football has always been my favorite, and my family has traditionally been a Texas Longhorn Football family. When my brother, Tomas, went to A&M, though, our loyalties shifted ever so slightly. We would still root for Texas and tended to follow their games more closely, but when that long-awaited “Lone Star Showdown” game comes along every Thanksgiving, we found ourselves torn between supporting the Horns and supporting Tomas’ alma mater. Even now, I am more likely to turn on a UT game, but this Thanksgiving I will more than likely be on the fence about just who to cheer on.

When it comes to the NFL, though, I have been a Cowboys fan for as long as I can remember. I can remember watching the games with my dad as a kid, getting to meet Emmitt Smith at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii one year, and cheering the Boys onto victory in Super Bowls XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX. They were unstoppable in my mind, a veritable force to be reckoned with.

Then the Cowboys apparently decided to take a break from winning… for about 15 years.