10.31--Our Dry Bone Valleys

Our Scripture reading today comes from Ezekiel 37:1-14. Let us together dive into the depths of this story. Listen attentively to this story of our people.

<Tell Ezekiel 37>

Imagine it. Imagine God picking you up and transporting you to a valley that is full of bones. Imagine being led from one end of this valley to the other, picking your way through the bones as you go. Imagine accidently stepping on one them, feeling more than hearing the crack under your foot as you wince at the jarring noise.

Why would God bring you here? What is so significant about the bones that they would catch and hold the attention of the Almighty? Why is it so important that you walk among them?

10.16--With Great Power (Sermon on 2 Kings 2:18-25)

My family is a movie-going family. There was a two-dollar movie theater in the town over from us, and we would go almost every week to see a different movie. The seats were old and deep; sitting in them was like sitting in a Lazy Boy recliner. The popcorn was just on the too-greasy side. And the projector was old enough that the picture quality was starting to fade slightly.

I loved it.

And what was my favorite type of movie to watch? Super hero movies. Yes, the plot line was always pretty much the same. Yes, the good guy always got the girl in the end. Yes, they always managed to throw in some funny, tension-breaking line at just the right spot in the drama. And yes, I loved them.

I remember going with my family to see Spiderman when it first came out. I was so excited, because Spiderman was one of my favorites. He never seemed to be the perfect hero, but he always managed to get the job done.

I could appreciate that in him, because I felt that way a lot in my own life.

I sat on the edge of my seat through the entire film, eyes riveted to the screen. What a perfect balance of action, comedy and even romance! What a wonderful combination of great cast, spot on writing, and just enough special effects to get the job done but not overkill it. It was perfect.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I always stay through the end of the credits when I’m at the movie theatre. Some people do this out of respect for the people who worked hard to bring me my movie. I do it just to see if there’s a teaser at the end for the next film. And while my family and I waited patiently to see if anything was at the end of the credits, my little sister wakes up from the hour and a half long coma she’s been in since Spiderman started. In the loudest voice her four-year-old self can muster, she asks, “Where’s Batman?”

10.9.11--Great is God's Faithfulness

Steve Jobs, the creator and former CEO of Apple, passed away this last Wednesday. Jobs was the innovative genius behind such inventions as the Apple 2, which was the first marketed personal computer, the iBook, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and the iPad. Within hours of his death, the news was all over the web—many of my Facebook friends changed their profile picture to the Apple logo, the Apple web page put up a tribute picture to him, President Obama himself said a few words in honor of the man, and even competitive companies like Microsoft and Google paid homage to this man’s life and work in their own special way.

This one man has left an amazing impact on the world, and even those who worked against him have to admit that one of the great minds of our time has passed too early from this world. I think the President said it best in his official statement: “There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.”

The world will remember Steve Jobs due to the impact he has left behind him.

Breaking the Roof--A Sermonette for Preaching Class

My dad was on the other side of the door. That’s all I knew, and that’s all I cared about. I could see him through the glass, still in his uniform since he came straight from work to pick us up. Now, I didn’t know or care that the door was an emergency exit, or that setting off the alarm in an airport was a federal offense. All my eight-year-old brain cared about was that my dad, whom I had not seen in three months, was behind the emergency exit door, watching as we waited to process through customs as the Honolulu International Airport. So, when Mom let go of my hand for a second to fill out a form, I walked over to it, placed my hands on the push-bar, and walked through to Daddy.

Mom had to explain to security why I had done what I did, and I knew that I should be getting yelled at, maybe even getting a spanking, but she didn’t get mad at me at all. She knew what had driven me to open that door; she knew I wanted to be with my dad.

10.2.11--Our Slow Fade (1 Kings--A Sermon on the Story of Solomon)

Friends, today I am going to share with you a Cajun secret. My dad’s side of the family has some Louisiana its blood, so I can claim to be at least in part a Cajun. And with this hallowed ancestry comes certain culinary characteristics. One is a craving for extremely hot food. When we have guests over to our house and we cook spicy food, I have to cook one batch for Jess and I and another batch for our guests because they aren’t used to the fiery onslaught their mouth is about to endure. Another is that secret recipes are passed down from father to daughter, mother to son, generation to generation. It might be the use of a specific spice, or a unique way to prepare a certain dish. It is one of these secrets that I am going to share with you today.

And it’s about frogs.

Now, every self-respecting Louisianite knows that if you put a live frog in a pot of boiling water, it will hop right back out and be a very unhappy amphibian. What some do not know, though, is that if you put a frog in room temperature water and then place it on a burner or over a fire, the frog will happily swim around while it is being boiled to death. So, if you are going to cook your frogs while they are still alive, make sure you bring the water to a boil while the frogs are in the pot. 

This way, your frog will… literally… croak.

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.