This is worship. This is worship.

Scripture: Revelation 7:9-17

In heaven there are no committees.

Now, I know for some of you that is a pretty blasphemous way to start a sermon, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression here. I love what committees do for the sake of the church and for my sanity as well. We have many dedicated, hardworking and genuinely necessary committees in this church. They mostly function very well together and I could not do my job without them. However, in spite of these things I am sorry to say that heaven still has no need of committees.

This is why.

If a committee were charged with organizing this giant worship service with the Lamb on the throne in Revelation 7 it would have been bogged down in all sorts of disagreements, and it never would have happened. The idea of opening up worship to great, uncountable multitudes from every corner of the world, every tribe and tongue, would have paralyzed the heavenly worship committee. How could we possibly all worship together? And, most importantly, how could we make enough coffee and bars to serve them all?

Lake of the Woods trip 2013

So, mostly this blog has become for sermons and whatnot. That's nice but it's also somewhat a bad sign that I have had little time for other things. OK, so life is life and sometimes you do what you do to get by, but when an opportunity comes for something else it should not be ignored. Hence, Lake of the Woods trip 2013. If you're not interested in what I do on vacation that's just fine, but if you are here it is. Enjoy. Oh, and here's a warning: It's not exactly relaxing.

So, I have been up on the NW Angle three years straight for muskie fishing with my buddy, Carl. I'd been to the Angle before these trips but never for anything quite so crazy. This is not your grandpa's walleye trip. It's 12-14 hour days of sun and wind and sometimes waves and always fishing--lots of fishing.

Day 1: Steak

We arrived in the Angle late Sunday afternoon with the idea of getting on the water ASAP. Basically the philosophy of this entire trip is: Fish whenever fishing is possible. Sunday night fishing was possible; hence we fished. We didn't catch much (by that I mean we caught nothing) and it was only a mini little four hour tour. So, the order of the day was rainbows and steak--in that order, but not necessarily by preference.

To become bound to the things that matter

Text: Ruth 1:16-17

I don't normally publish wedding (or funeral) sermons but I had multiple requests in this case so here it is. Names and places have been removed for the sake of the couple but otherwise the sermon is unaltered.

One little verse from Ruth sums up your responsibilities and commitments in the married life. “Where you go, I will go; where you stay, I will stay; where you die, I will die.” That’s not something you hear much these days. I mean, people get married because they really like each other and it’s the thing to do when two people really like each other; and people get married because they have children together or want to have children together; or people even get married for taxes or completely practical reasons, and because of this “Where you go, I will go” has lost its simplicity. You two know about going places together. It’s taken you on a bit of an adventure so far and it has brought you back here today. Nobody knows where it goes from here. The simple promise you are making now is that this journey will not be a solo effort; instead, you will be in it together—for better and, sometimes, for worse.

Maybe you’ve had people jokingly rib you over this whole marriage thing. There’s this widespread attitude that in marriage you will lose your freedom—that tomorrow you will be less free than you were today. And, honestly, it’s kind of true. This is a commitment that will eliminate possibilities from your life. In fact, from here on out in every big event that you share together possibilities for the future will disappear because you will make choices that take you down one path and close other paths entirely. This journey might include big moves, additions to the family, new jobs, and other things that will take you by surprise, but all of these things will mean eliminating possible futures from your life, always making you less and less free.

What is the church? People + Worship + ... Evangelism??

            I’m going to ask a question. It’s such a completely obvious question that it seems almost like a silly thing to bring up, but then again the most obvious questions tend to be the ones that never get asked. So, here we go: What is the church?

            OK, so there are a few levels to that question. Most often when pastor-folk ask ‘What is church?’ they are trying to get you to say this: “The church is not the building but the people.” Gold star. 100% on your confirmation test. Congrats. That’s a great answer. In fact, it’s an answer we need to give more often. We tend to revere our church buildings too much. Like Peter following the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, our first thought in the midst of something holy is to build a dwelling place for God (Luke 9:33). But (of course there’s always a “but”) the church is also more than just people. What are those people doing? Why are they gathering? What is their purpose? So many questions...

The four horsemen: Been there, done that

Text: Revelation 6:1-8

           I’m going to start this sermon-blog with a little survey. Now, I know what happens when I ask you a question involving raising your hands in worship—three of you will raise your hands about as high as your mouths and the rest of you look will around like I’m not talking to you. But since this is online hopefully you can at least answer in your head. Don't raise your hand. That might make your family or the other people at the coffee shop think there's something wrong. So, here’s the deal. This is a multiple choice question. There are no correct answers. However, there is one way to get the question wrong and that is if you don’t answer. So here’s the question: Which of the four horsemen do you find the scariest?

            Listen to your four choices and think about it. There’s the white horse, which represents conquest, especially by a foreign power; there’s the red horse, which represents internal conflict and violence; there’s the black horse, which represents economic insecurity and famine; and finally, the pale green horse that represents death. White horse, conquest; red horse, violence; black horse, famine; green horse, death. Those are your choices. Which do you find the scariest?

Boredom, prayer, and why reading Revelation stresses us out

Revelation 5:1-14

            Do you know that feeling when you’ve had something absolutely amazing happen—when your whole world has been rocked and nothing will ever again be the same? Have you ever had an experience so incredible and otherworldly that you have to share it? I hope you have. And I bet most of us at least have some idea what that is like. Every once in awhile the stars align and we have that perfect, often unexpected, moment. But if you have had such a moment you probably also know the feeling of trying to share it with somebody else.

            It’s hard for us to relate to subjective experiences. After our youth’s mission trip to Colorado last year we tried to share with you what it was like to experience some of the relationships we built and the emotions that we felt. Again this year when we return from our mission trip to Idaho we are planning to take a Sunday to share the same things. Of course, mission trips are far from the only time we experience these seminal moments in our lives. It happens when babies are born; it happens in moments of intense spirituality or the euphoria of your sports team winning a championship. Each of those moments is beautiful and equally challenging to share with others who are not a part of them from the beginning.

One big, stinking church

Text: Revelation 3:14-22

This is adapted from a sermon preached at midweek services at Zion Lutheran in Lake Bronson, MN.

            This summer at Grace and Red River we’re taking a narrative lectionary tour through Revelation so I’m going to share a little bit of that with you today. Together with the Acts reading we have a pretty clear central theme for the service which is: churches in need of repentance. And I know there’s nothing like a guest preacher coming into a place that is not his own and preaching on churches in need of repentance, so here we go!

             The truth is, whether I’m here at Zion or home at Grace or Red River or basically at any church in the world, we have the same basic need for repentance because we mostly have the same problems. I know some churches are big and others small; some are financially secure and others barely holding on, so it might seem on the surface like these churches have very different problems, but I want to suggest that it actually comes down to much the same thing. The book of Revelation was written to seven churches in seven different situations, but I can guarantee that your church fits into more than one of these categories; in fact, if your church is like mine then it fits into all seven. Every church has a problem sometimes with complacency, sometimes with assimilation, and sometimes with fear of the outsider. And I know this because, in spite of the fact that some churches are big and others are small, some are secure and others are struggling, we are nonetheless part of the same big, stinking church.

The surprising theology of happiness

Text: Revelation 3:14-22

            There is a famous 1978 study on the relativity of happiness in which a trio of psychologists set out to discover whether people become happier after they win the lottery. They tested their hypothesis by assessing the happiness of people who win the lottery over time and comparing it with a control group as well as a group of people who lost a limb as the result of an accident. That’s right, the main contrast in this study was between lottery winners and amputees. This research has been repeated a couple of times since with near identical results.

            On the surface this seems like an awfully strange experiment. Not all of us may buy into the idea that money brings happiness but I bet most of us would think: “It can’t hurt!” Either way, given the choice between winning the lottery or losing a limb I’m going to guess we would all make the same choice. And at first the study agreed with our gut instincts. Immediately after winning the lottery people are happier! Surprise, surprise.

The problem is that it doesn’t last.