Writings


Behold, The Lamb of God
Posted in Sermons

[A sermon preached in Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School on October 25.2005. At time I was Visiting Professor of Theology at Yale.]

Revelation 4.1-5.14

This lectionary reading for today from the Book of Revelation is bristling with imaginative language that can just as easily be abused as used fruitfully in the life of the church. As I try to make some sense of this passage, I suggest we bear in mind the following preliminary points:

1. The Book is written in that sort of imaginative language scholars call ‘apocalyptic’ in which the impending future is the time of God’s great reckoning with the destiny of the world.

2. While the text itself does not claim to be written by John the disciple, the author does assert that he has received a “revelation of Jesus Christ” sent to him by an angel, and he considers himself among those in the early church who prophesy in the name of Jesus.

3. The text is addressed primarily to seven churches in what was called Asia Minor, who were…


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Jesus, the Family, and the Summons of the Kingdom
Posted in Sermons

[A sermon preached on June 26, 2005 at St. Paul UMC in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Posted here 7/6/05. Published in Encounter, vol. 67, no. 2 [Spring 2006] pp. 199-206.]

Matthew 10.34-39


This passage from the Gospel according to Matthew must surely strike us as strange and shocking. At the very least it must challenge some of the loose and careless assumptions that seem to be rife in the life of the church today.

One of those assumptions is that the Bible is easy to read and accessible in its meaning to any earnest individual. To be sure, much of our Holy Scripture is quite transparent in its meaning, but so too there are many passages that remain obscure to any facile interpretation.

For those who think the whole Bible must be interpreted ‘literally,’ this passage is a stumbling block. Are we to believe that Jesus—who is represented elsewhere in Matthew and all the other gospels as blessing peacemakers and bringing peace to his followers—has now changed his mind and is literally saying he “has…


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Jesus, the Incarnate Word: Grace upon Grace
Posted in Sermons

[This sermon was preached January 2, 2005 at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Muskogee, OK, the Reverend Kevin Tully pastor. Posted here 1/3/05]

John 1.1-18

 

[This sermon was preached January 2, 2005 at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Muskogee, OK, the Reverend Kevin Tully pastor. Posted here 1/3/05]

 

The passage I have just read from the Gospel of John is typically referred to as the “Prologue” to the whole gospel. In it we have one of the most profound and influential statements of the significance of Jesus of Nazareth that exists anywhere in the literature of the early church. It is fair to say that what came to be known as the ‘orthodox’ tradition of the church was deeply dependent on the language and theology of the Gospel of John.

It is, I hope, a special blessing for us to have this text as the lectionary reading for this Second Sunday of Christmas, at the beginning of this new year of 2005. I propose to give the…


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Freedom: Freedom from What? Freedom for What?
Posted in Sermons

[A slightly revised sermon preached on July 4, 2004 at St. Paul United Methodist Church, Muskogee, Oklahoma. Posted here 7/9/04.]

Galatians 5.1,6,13-26

In this passage from Galatians we have one of the great Christian testimonies about freedom in Christ. And it seems a happy coincidence that we are reading and meditating on this passage on the precise day, the Fourth of July, when our nation celebrates its Declaration of Independence from the rule of the King and Parliament of England. The leaders of the bedraggled colonies had found the governance by England to be a great restraint on their lives, so they declared their freedom from the rule of that nation from which so many of the colonists had emigrated.

It is right and proper that this day should be celebrated in our nation, for an experiment in democratic government was being launched that has had enormous influence on the modern world. Surely each of us has enjoyed freedoms as Americans that might not have been present in other times and places. Not the least…


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Old and New Habits of Mind and Heart
Posted in Sermons

[A sermon preached at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Muskogee, Oklahoma on December 28, 2003. Posted here 1/5/04. Published in Encounter, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Autumn 2004), pp. 403-411.]

Colossians 3.1-17

I once knew a man named Tom who was really quite ordinary, even his quirks were ordinary. Tom knew the English language quite well and could even be eloquent on occasion. But he had one flaw that seemed to bedevil him and his friends on numerous occasions. As with any English-language speaker, Tom could utter the words ‘I promise,’ but he could not, in saying those words, perform the act of promising. He would regularly say these words or their virtual equivalents—‘I will be there;’ ‘You can count on me;’ ‘I will do it’—but he never acted so as to keep his promises. His friends soon came to realize that no matter what Tom said, he could not be relied on to keep his word.

What do we make of this all too common phenomenon? At least it means that Tom used the language of promising…


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