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| Sunday December 21, 2008 "The Light Breaks Through" Isaiah 9:2-7 | Brad's Blog Brad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on12/22/2008 2:13 PM | |
| The night was as dark as one I had ever experienced. Oh, not some “spiritual dark night of the soul”…I mean it was DARK outside. I would guess I was 8 or 9 years old at the camp my parents ran in northern Michigan. It was generally darker up there than in our home in Detroit. There was no ambient glow of the city lights to brighten things up, and generally, that was a good thing. Because without that city glow, the skies were filled with thousands upon thousands of stars and may nights were spent looking for the big and little dipper and other constellations we knew.
But this night, it was overcast and the lights of the stars were hidden by the clouds. When I tell you it was dark, I mean it was dark.
And this was the night my flashlight decided not to work.
The camp my parents ran had two parts. First, there was what called “the hotel.” It was a hunting and fishing lodge that my grandfather and my great uncle had built in the 1920’s, ... |  | |
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| | Stop! | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on12/18/2008 9:33 AM | |
| Greetings on this lovely Spring day!
For some reason, no matter how hard I try to plan things out during Advent and Christmas, they never quite work out the way I plan. Oh, nothing major, but when I work hard to make sure that I can take some time to relax and enjoy this season, I still reach a point where it seems like all I want to do is get through it. I assure you, THAT is not the way to celebrate Advent and Christmas. Unfortunately, it has become the modus operandi for how we live our lives too much of the time. We get so scheduled that we forget that we the schedule is supposed to serve us, not the other way around. So, what are we to do about it? The short answer: STOP.
Oh, I can hear some of you: “That’s easy for you to say!” Well, no, it is not easy for me to say. In fact, it is terribly difficult for me to say. I love all the activities of Advent. I love the ramping up to the wonderful celebration of Christmas Eve. I love getting together wi ... | | |
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| | A Sacred Mess | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on12/15/2008 1:47 PM | |
| Greetings!
How does the song go? “Oh, the weather outside is frightful…” Well, that about describes today. Grey, rainy, at times downright frightening with thunder and incredible bursts of drenching downpours. A good day to be inside. But as I sit in my office, I am in the midst of another frightful sight: what a mess! If anyone were to come in and visit for the first time, they would think I am the worst kind of pack rat. But a closer look at what fills up my office at this time of year makes me feel about as good as I have in a long, long time.
Piled in one corner of my office, and spilling out into the main area are bag upon bag of Christmas presents destined for excited boy and girls who, but for your great generosity, would be facing a bleak Christmas. The wish lists of 50 children graced our narthex tree 10 days ago, now there is but a handful. Presents have already started coming in and my office has become the storage area. For those who took ... | | |
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| | Being the Church | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on12/4/2008 10:11 AM | |
| Greetings on this sunny, chilly day,
It was a simple statement. “You know, times are tough. People may not be able to buy Christmas Trees like they have in the past.” And that simple statement by someone as we set up the Christmas Tree lot about 10 days ago got a discussion going. How can we help people out? The discussion became about how everyone is feeling the pinch of the recession, from the poorest of the poor, to the wealthy. In the neighborhood surrounding the church, we see a little bit of everything from stately old homes to shotgun shacks.
The discussion continued off and on about what the church might be able to do and somehow, an idea bubbled to the surface. What if we collected food to help support those who are having trouble putting food on the table AND gave those who donated the food a break on their Christmas Trees, who might appreciate a little break in tough times, too. The idea got thrown around and some folks got pretty excited abou ... | | |
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| | Sunday November 30, 2008 "Being Advent People" Isaiah 40:1-11 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on12/1/2008 11:19 AM | |
| Are you ready?
It’s a simple question, that we hear a lot this time of year: Are you ready for Christmas?
Ready! Are you kidding me? It’s three days past Thanksgiving…there is still so much to be done before Christmas! The planning, the buying, the cooking, the partying, the wrapping….ready? Ha! Ask me again on about December 23rd!
This is a very strange time of year for me. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love the ramp up to Christmas and all that comes along with it. But from a theological point of view, from a church point of view, something gets obscured when this season all gets identified as Christmas…or at the very least as the preparation for Christmas.
What gets obscured is the season of Advent, the beginning of the Christian year, a time of preparation to be sure, but preparation for what?
We sit in a wonderful time, in a wonderful place: we know what happened on that night in the sta ... | | |
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| | Sunday November 23, 2008 "Thanks and Praise" 2 Chronicles 20:14-21 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on11/24/2008 2:31 PM | |
| Thanksgiving is about remembering.
It’s about remembering where we came from.
When Thanksgiving rolls around every year, I can’t help but think of the Thanksgivings past that I spent with my family. Growing up, my family lived basically in two places: the rural area of Michigan known as “The Thumb”, and the biggest city in the state, Detroit.
My father grew up in the Thumb, in a place called Sandusky and my mother had lots of aunts, uncles and cousins in the next town over, Marlette. In fact, my mother, who was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Detroit, actually lived on her grandparents farm for one year in Marlette, when she was 5 years old. That’s where she met my father, at the Flynn Township Red Star School…a one room school house that my father attended until he went to high school.
When I was a small child, we would go up to the Thumb and have Thanksgiving with my grandparents, or my great Uncle Jim and Aun ... | | |
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| | Keeping the Celebration | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on11/19/2008 11:02 AM | |
| Greetings on this crisp, clear day!
Believe it or not, Thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow. Advent begins in about 10 days. And we all know what that means: that Christmas is not far away, either. Sometimes, it seems to me that things come so fast that I don’t have the time to truly celebrate and observe the holidays. The distractions of all the activities, while good and fun, can sometimes pull us away from the spiritual disciplines that the different holidays cry out for. And when we don’t take the time to stop, think, pray and celebrate, we will indeed miss something.
My advice? Plan to take some time every day to be with God, alone, in prayer and conversation. Take a few minutes to read the Bible, to read the Advent books that the Elders have provided for us. Take some time to give thanks, to recommit to following the teachings of Jesus even more closely in the days ahead, to celebrate that God is with us in the person of the baby born in a stable in Be ... | | |
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| | Veteran's Day | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on11/12/2008 3:52 PM | |
| Greetings on this grey day,
As we close in on one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving, many of us paused yesterday to give thanks for those who have served this country in war, in peace, in times of great uncertainty, in times of great calm. I am of course talking about the Veterans of our various military branches. And truth be told, we ought to stop far more than once a year to say “thank you” to these dedicated men and women. In this day and time, it is too easy to put aside what they have done for us, and what they continue to do for us, because we don’t see it, up close and persona. Whether they are actively engaged in protecting us, or actively involved in hostilities, they stand ready to do so at a moment’s notice. With our “smart” weapons and long range missiles, it is easy to think that our military folks can somehow keep “distant” from harm’s way. But of course, that is absurd. When wars are carried out, military personnel are in harms way, always. If you know a vete ... | | |
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| | Sunday November 9, 2009 "Laying the Foundation" Ezra 3: 10-13 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on11/11/2008 10:27 AM | |
| The Book of Ezra picks up where the Book of Chronicles ends: with an account of the return to Jerusalem of the exiles in Babylon. Ezra and it’s companion book, Nehemiah, tell the story of what happened during those confusing times.
Make no mistake about it, they were most certainly confusing times. The leadership of Jerusalem had been carried away to Babylon years before. They had found a new life in Babylon. It was not a horrible exile, a punitive imprisoning exile, but it was exile nonetheless. They were away from their home, away from their holiest temple, away from the center of their religious and their civic life.
Then, in the edict of Cyrus of Persia, conqueror of Babylon, they were told to go home. Told to rebuild the city, rebuild the temple, rebuild their lives. Let’s be clear: this was the idea of Cyrus, their enemy, who reported that this edict was conveyed to him as God’s will. Cyrus didn’t just let them go. He helped them get home. He d ... | | |
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| | Election Day | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on11/5/2008 9:01 AM | |
| Greetings on this wonderful day,
This morning I went by the dry cleaners before I headed to the church. I passed two different polling places on the way, and what I saw was pretty incredible. It was about 7:15 in the morning and the scene was exactly the same at both places…cars jamming the parking lot, cars lined up down side streets, a huge crowd of people in a thick line snaking around the parking lot and down the sidewalk! I am told that here at BCC, the line snaked from the back fellowship hall doors around the church into the front parking lot, some 200 people long. I’ve seen lines to vote before, but for lots of reasons, this sight was especially moving to me.
First, in my former life as a political appointee and then a professor of Political Science, political participation was a sermon that I preached over and over and over again. The more we participate, the more the government and the policies of that government will reflect our will. If we sit ... | | |
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