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| This is the day... | Brad's Blog Mid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on10/21/2009 4:34 PM | |
| Greetings!
I woke up this morning with a song in my head. When I got out of bed and looked out the window, I have to admit that my mood did not fit the song that was running through my head. Once again, I woke up to a drippy, drizzly, overcast, dreary morning. Yet the song kept playing:
“This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made….I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it…” Bah Humbug!
The streets were no better. People unsure how to drive in the rain are still a mystery to me. The trick is slow down – not speed up! Traffic lights were out. A tree was sticking into one road. An accident made me go a different route. Still, the song kept playing: “This is the day that that the Lord has made…I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Oh pipe down, would ya’?!
As I grew closer to the church, the rain picked up. No longer was it a slight drizzle, but a downpour was beginning…and just as I was going ... |  | |
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| | Sunday October 18, 2009 "Risky Business" Luke 4:18-19 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on10/21/2009 4:29 PM | |
| This faith stuff is very definitely risky business.
Look at our messiah if you have any doubts about that. Fully divine, fully human, he walked among the people of Israel and Palestine and taught and lived and ministered and preached. Then he died because of what he had dared to say and do.
The example of Jesus is one that we must take to heart if we are to understand the notion of risk taking, because his life and death are the very definition of risk taking. Stepping out in faith to do God’s will and to serve God’s people. Moving beyond one’s comfortable existence and putting one’s very life at risk.
Jesus’ ministry in it’s broadest sense was a ministry of service. Service to all of humanity by providing a link to a relationship with God. Service to those sick and suffering he met along the way by providing healing. Service to those who were the outsiders by providing hope. It is the hallmark of his ministry and as the church ... | | |
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| | God's Presence | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on10/21/2009 4:25 PM | |
| Greetings on this gorgeous day!
Just this week someone asked me how I know that God is present in the world. I was suddenly taken back to a place where a similar question was asked and answered about as eloquently as possible.
It was during my time as a visiting professor at the University of Missouri. Columbia, MO, the university’s hometown, sat dead center in the state of Missouri, half way between St. Louis and Kansas City. Three friends of mine and I spent a lot of weekends going to one of those cities or the other, since there wasn’t a lot to do in Columbia! We were very different people, the four of us. There was the dyed in the wool atheist; the disaffected fundamentalist still struggling with the faith of his parents; the struggling Catholic – faithful but questioning of the operation of the church; and me. We were from very different social milieu also. Me from the a big industrial city; one from New Zealand; one from the deep south and one from ... | | |
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| | There's always next year | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on10/12/2009 10:33 AM | |
| Greetings on this finally dry day,
1967 was not a good year for me. My father spent about 3 months of it in the hospital fighting infectious hepatitis, my hometown exploded in the worst urban riots in American history, and my hometown baseball team, the Detroit Tigers, lost the pennant on the last day of the season.
From some perspectives, 2009 isn’t that great either. The economy has hurt us all, but especially my hometown. General Motors and Chrysler have gone through bankruptcy reorganizations. Unemployment in Detroit is upwards of 25%. And the Detroit Tigers lost the division championship on the day AFTER the last day of the season.
Unbelievable. 7 games in front of the Minnesota Twins on September 1st. 3 games up with four games to play. Yet, when the dust had settled, the Twins and Tigers were tied at the end of the season. Which led to what happened last night: one of the great games ever that unfortunately ended with the Tige ... | | |
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| | Sunday September 20, 2009 "Draw Near to God" James 3: 13 – 4:3, 7-8a | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on10/12/2009 10:18 AM | |
| As we continue our study of James, we look back to the lessons of the last to weeks: James proclamations that how we live our lives matters and what we say and how we say it matters.
Today’s scripture continues in this vein, but here, James begins to move toward helping us understand exactly what it is we should do to live the Christian life. This is especially welcome in light of the passage last week where James is so clear about we are NOT to do, but a bit less helpful in helping to define what we are supposed to do, and how to do it.
In this passage, James is stepping away from his diatribe style and moving instead into what Biblical scholars call an interrogatory style. In short, it means he is framing his advice by raising questions and providing answers.
The first question James raises is “Who is wise and understanding among you?”
If we were to look around this sanctuary this morning, each of us could come u ... | | |
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| | Service | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on9/16/2009 2:57 PM | |
| Greetings!
When we talk about the book of James - as we have been in worship the last couple of weeks – we almost always come back to the most controversial part of the book: “Faith without works is dead.” Without rehashing the argument, I’m going to leave it today that James, echoing his brother Jesus, believes strongly in the saving grace of Jesus Christ and also believes that it is up to us to put our hands to work in service to God’s children. That service, those works, help our faith grow and give it meaning to us and to those we serve.
I am gratified to report that in the last couple of weeks I have had several conversations with folks interested in serving others. Folks with ideas of how we might use our gifts and resources to help our brothers and sisters in need. This is not a new concept here at BCC, but for many people, this James study has seemed like a call to action, a call to renew our commitment to serve God through good works. And lo and beh ... | | |
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| | Sunday September 13, 2009 "Godspeak" James 3:1-12 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on9/16/2009 2:54 PM | |
| Last week, we spent some time looking at James, the brother of Jesus, and his views on living the Christian life through good works. Good works that glorify God and that make our faith come alive for all to see. The message of James was not that faith is unimportant. Rather it was that stepping out in service because of our faith was something that Jesus instructed us to do on several occasions. To James, and to Jesus, how we live our lives, the actions we take, the lives we touch, are all important testimony to our faith.
In this weeks scripture, we see James addressing something similar. Whereas last week we heard a resounding “how we live is important” this week the message is only slightly altered. This week James wants us to see that “what we say is important.”
It’s easy to understand that if we put our faith into action and do our best to help those who need assistance, people will take notice of that and when we do it all to God’s glory, people will ... | | |
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| | Joy | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on9/9/2009 9:06 AM | |
| One of the great things about getting married on a holiday weekend is that every year there is an extra day set aside to celebrate. When Carol and I were first married, a national professional society I belonged to always had their annual conference over the Labor Day weekend in Chicago, possibly our favorite city. So every year on our anniversary, we knew we could take a relatively cheap trip to Chicago (the Palmer House at conference rates…you can’t beat it!) We would have a chance to relax, to be with friends, and to celebrate our marriage. Since I became a minister, that trip is no longer an option, but still, the holiday weekend does allow us to get away and to make our anniversary even more special.
This year we headed over to the beach for a couple of days of relaxation and sea food. We spent the better part of one whole day on lounge chairs, under a big umbrella, reading, enjoying the sound of the surf, people watching and simply relaxing. I can’t think of a better way to s ... | | |
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| | Sunday September 6, 2009 "The Work of Faith" James 2:1-17 | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on9/8/2009 2:41 PM | |
| Mention the book of James around certain groups of Christians, and you are likely to have a serious discussion. Or maybe even start an argument.
This little book of the Bible has the ability to inflame passions and spark heated theological debate. Ultimately, it seems to me that this is a very good thing. Because unless we really throw our scriptures wide open to scrutiny we will never gain any new insight. Unless we also throw open the possibility for change in our behaviors and actions, we run the risk of being “rote” Christians, too often sticking to the easy stuff.
There are a couple of reasons that the book of James invokes such passions.
Most famously, the great reformation theologian Martin Luther once declared the book “an epistle of straw” and dismissed it on theological grounds. A lot of my Lutheran friends to this day have never heard a sermon preached out of the book of James because of Martin Luther’s stance. A lot of my ... | | |
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| | Happy Labor Day! | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on9/2/2009 2:49 PM | |
| Greetings on this lovely fall day,
Well, here it is, the unofficial end of summer. When I was a kid, Labor Day was the final nail in summer’s coffin…the end of fun and the beginning of school drudgery. Okay, so I exaggerate a little, but not much! But today, some kids have been back in school for a month! Some of the colleges still are just getting underway, but it seems we have lost that universal marker that Labor Day always was.
Maybe that is not such a bad thing. Maybe it’s important that this holiday weekend is not simply the end of summer party that it used to be. Maybe it will give us a chance to step back and truly celebrate Labor Day as it was meant to be celebrated: in honor of those hardworking men and women who through their labors sustain the economy, provide for the their families and make real the idea that hard work should be rewarded. It also is a day when, as much as practical, we put away the rigors of work to relax and be with family and f ... | | |
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