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| It's almost here... | Brad's Blog Mid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on3/31/2010 3:23 PM | |
| Greetings on this gorgeous day!
It has already happened…but we need it to happen again. It is almost here…but still, it seems a long way off.
That in a nutshell is what Easter seems to be all about. We will gather on Sunday to celebrate the fact that the resurrection did happen, yet we still ache for resurrection in our own lives. We know that it is almost here, but can’t it just hurry up? As much as I love Lent and the buildup to Easter…as much as I love the celebration that will take place on Sunday all over the world…as much as I thankful for what Easter means to us all, I wonder sometimes if we don’t do the celebration a disservice by concentrating so much energy on one particular celebration on one particular day.
Oh, don’t get me wrong: the resurrection of Jesus is the most amazing, miraculous, life changing event I can even imagine. I give thanks every day for the fact that through Jesus, death has been overcome. I revel in each ... |  | |
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| | Sunday March 28, 2010 "The End of the Beginning" Luke 19: 28-40 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on3/31/2010 10:17 AM | |
| | It was sometime between 2:30 and 3:00 in the morning when the phone rang. It’s never good news when the phone rings between 2:30 and 3:00 in the morning.Good news can wait at least a few hours, but bad news doesn’t wait.Before I answered the phone I knew who it was, and I was right. There was a pause and in a voice choked with emotion, my friend Linda said simply, “It’s time. Can you come to the hospital?” I said “Of course, I’ll be there as fast as I can.”As I made my way to the hospital, the last 3 years ran through my mind. Linda was the wife of a good friend of mine named Mike. Mike was an artist of national, even international, renown, but I didn’t know that when I first met him. He was simply a guy who came to the noon time Men’s Bible study I was facilitating at the church where I served. After the meeting, we sat and chatted for almost an hour. Mike had told the group that the day before, he had been diagnosed with cancer, and he was going back the next day to get the full rundown of what the doctors ... | | |
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| | From the Winter Comes the Spring | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on3/24/2010 9:00 AM | |
| Greetings!
Today is one of those days when winter seems like a distant memory…
Well, okay, not so distant. Monday morning about 8:00 a.m. I sat down at my desk, turned on my computer and waited for it to boot up so I could check my e-mail. As it was coming up, I glanced out the window to see…SNOW! And not just a flake or two that I had to strain to see and wonder if it really was snow…SNOW! Flurries that danced all around in front of me. I was in shock. Of course, it stopped within about 5 minutes, nothing stuck to the ground and it turned out to be a reasonably nice day. But still, I thought, “Please! I can’t take it any more!” I was reminded of a cousin of mine who went to college at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. Marquette is about as far north as you can get in Michigan and is known for long, harsh winters. When he enrolled there he was looking forward to lots of skiing and snow-shoeing and outdoor winter activities. He reveled ... | | |
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| | Sunday March 21, 2010 "Press On" Philippians 3:4b - 14 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on3/22/2010 2:57 PM | |
| Sunday March 21, 2010
“Press On”
Philippians 3:4b -14
From the time I can really remember beginning to understand some of what is in the Bible, I wasn’t sure what to make of Paul. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to trust someone who did a 180 degree turn in their life like he did. He was the persecutor of the Christians, after all. He was responsible for imprisoning and possibly even executing those who were followers of Jesus, those who dared believe that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah.
But I have come to understand that it is precisely because Paul did that 180 degree turn in his life that we need to listen to him. Because Paul knows of what he speaks: he knows what it means to change; he knows what it means to turn his life around. He has something very important to tell us.
Today’s passage is one of those times when I look at Paul and realize that he understands what it means to struggle with giving one ... | | |
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| | Sunday March 14, 2010 "Home Again For the First Time" Joshua 5:9-12 | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on3/15/2010 11:59 AM | |
| Have you ever noticed how important food is in the Bible? Over and over again, we have stories of Jesus sharing meals with different groups. Granted, they were usually groups that “unacceptable” to the religious authorities: tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers. But not always. We also have the wonderful story of the feeding of the multitudes with the 5 loaves and two fish. We have the wedding banquet, and of course, we still to this day celebrate the last meal of Jesus’ misnistry: the last supper or holy communion.
But it’s not just the example of Jesus that points out the importance of food. We have examples of Abraham and Sarah welcoming the three strangers to their home with a lavish meal. We have the Passover meal itself as the final act of an enslaved people about to leave Egypt. We have the stories of manna from heaven that sustained the wandering Israelites for some 40 years. And we have the meal that marks the entrance into the promised land that we heard described this ... | | |
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| | Healing Sounds | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on3/15/2010 8:08 AM | |
| Greetings on this beautiful day,
(You may be wondering why the Midweek Missive is coming a day early this week…it is because tomorrow I will be at an all day workshop called “Stewardship in the 21st Century: A Day of Theological Discussion” and so not around to send this out! Also, since Wednesday is our office manager’s day off, the office will be closed. If you need to leave a message please do so and I’ll get back with you as soon as possible.)
This past Sunday I was so moved by the service of healing led by Rev. Linda Whitmire. It was a reminder that we all have wounds that need healing and an even bigger reminder that through our relationship with God as revealed in Jesus Christ, healing is available to us. It is not always easy, but when we open up and try and turn our grief and pain over to God, the healing process can begin. Thanks to Rev. Whitmire and to Rev. Carol Mallon, who brought the stirring story of the cup that was not designed to hold liquid ... | | |
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| | Sunday February 28, 2010 "Stand Firm" Philippians 3:17-41 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on3/1/2010 9:37 AM | |
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Lent can be very confusing.
Especially if you were brought up in the protestant church in America in the mid to late 20th century. And yes, that means that I am saying, Lent can be very confusing to me.
So, let’s take just a few minutes to see if we can’t resolve some of the confusion.
First, when is Lent? Lent is a period of 40 days that runs from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. But of course, if you count the days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday you get 46 days. The 6 extra days are the Sundays in that time period and Sundays are not counted as official parts of Lent. Hopefully, you will understand why that is in a few minutes.
Second, what is Lent? Lent is a time of introspection and preparation. We are called to look hard at who we are and at where we are in our faith walk. We do this in preparation for two things: first, so that we might be a stronger witness for God’s love and grace in the ... | | |
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| | Spring Training | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on2/25/2010 9:41 AM | |
| Greetings on this chilly, sunny day,
Yesterday afternoon I heard a familiar sound. A sound that made my heart leap just a little bit. A sound that told me without equivocation that spring is coming. A sound that I heard over and over again. The sound was that of a baseball against a bat at the Oglethorpe University baseball stadium. When I sit at my computer and look out my office window this time of year, I have an almost unobstructed view of the infield of the Oglethorpe diamond. Yesterday they were having batting practice and I could sit and watch ball after ball being hit. After a long winter, it is one of the most wonderful sounds ever. (I know that some of you don’t understand, but that’s okay, because I know Judy Mowrey does, and that’s good enough for me.)
This morning when I got into the office I saw on the calendar that yesterday was the start of spring training. I read a story about the manager of the Detroit Tigers, Jim Leyland, and his excitem ... | | |
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| | Sunday February 21, 2010 "God Given Bounty" Deuteronomy 26:1-11 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on2/22/2010 9:26 AM | |
| I never really understood why this passage was considered a Lenten passage, but every third year, it shows up as one of the suggested passages to be used during our Lenten observance. I never really understood that, until this year.
The Israelites wandered the wilderness for 40 years, waiting for the day when they would inhabit the “promised land.” They have seen their parents and grandparents generation die before the promise was made real. They must have had some reservations about this God that let them roam in circles for all those years. They must have wondered if they too would die before they saw this land.
This scripture passage is one of great importance for our Jewish brothers and sisters. It is one of the essential “identity” stories of their faith. It is the story of the Isrealite’s inheritance; they are heirs to God’s enduring promise, now spread out before them. It is the climax of the exodus story. Think about this: if my math is right, the ... | | |
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| | Going it alone in Lent | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on2/17/2010 11:42 AM | |
| Greetings on this cold morning,
Today is the beginning of Lent. Over the years, I have seen Lent observed in many different ways, and I have heard many explanations of what Lent it supposed to mean. The thing that has dawned on me recently is that those two issues – how to observe Lent and what Lent means are inextricably connected. Well, duh. But let me explain.
First, last and always, Lent is the most personal of all seasons of the Christian year. The fact that it ends with the most public of all Christian celebrations makes the internal disciplines of Lent all the more important. The fact is that the important thing about Lent is how it works for us, on us, to us. We can read lots of books expounding on what Lent is and how we are to observe it, but all those books are at best, loose guides from someone else’s experience, and at worse, something that sidetracks us from really looking at our experience and our own needs.
For me, Le ... | | |
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