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Luke 4:14-21

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

When I did my doctoral studies in organizational revitalization, we were taught a simple way to bring about transformation in the way ministry is done. Simply change the name of the committees or create a brand new structure to do new things in new ways. In one of the parishes I served, we re-envisioned our ministry every five years. One year, more to humor me than anything else, the Vision Task F...

2. Call Waiting

John 1:29-42

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

Chaim Potok was an intensely religious man; a Jew who explored the dimensions of faith in our lives. From an early age, Potok knew he wanted to be a writer. But his mother wasn't so sure. When he went away to college she said, "Son, now I know you want to be a writer. But I want you to think about brain surgery. You'll keep a lot of people from dying. And you'll make a lot of money." To which Poto...

3. Crisis Management

Luke 21:25-36

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

It is a newspaper image I will never forget. And for me it is an image of Advent. The time was the early 1990s. The place was Sarajevo — the gutted, bombed out epicenter of the Balkan War — when ethnic violence had destroyed beauty and buildings and any sense of human community. One day, a man put on his tuxedo, picked up his cello and a chair, and went and sat at the central intersection of town ...

4. Demonstrating the Divine

John 1:10-18

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

For almost fifty years I have lived comfortably within the church. And for almost fifty years I have loved the church. I still remember sitting in the pew, a small child of three or four - dwarfed by big shoulders embracing me on every side. I loved the music - the grand soaring chords of the organ. I loved the windows and the colors, the flowers and soft cushions. I loved the warm, full voice of ...

5. Disappointed in Jesus

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

It was a painful experience for both of us. Jane was a young mother about my age. She had been on the pastor nominating committee that called us to New Jersey. And we had shared much laughter and friendship through the years. She also was on the session - and that cold November night she seemed edgy and distant. I soon found out why. Following the meeting, she waited for me out in the parking lot....

6. God with Skin On

Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

As we gather here this holy night, we come from a variety of religious backgrounds. For some of you I’m sure the more familiar word during The Lord’s Prayer is “trespasses.” You will especially appreciate an internet story about the little boy who was sent to bed early on Christmas Eve. His boisterous excitement was getting in the way of all the hectic, last minute preparations his parents were tr...

7. God’s Absurd Answer

Luke 6:27-38

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

In a stunning biblical slap in the face, our gospel reading for this morning also served as the lectionary text ten days after 9/11 — ten days after Ground Zero became a devastating reality in our nation’s history. Love our enemies? Offer forgiveness? God, you have to be kidding! That first week after 9/11 — after the terror struck — after our world changed forever — I kept reading about other mi...

8. God's Delight

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

Once upon a time a student approached his teacher and announced that he was ready to assume the office of ministry. "And what are your qualifications?" the teacher asked. "I have mastered the art of physical discipline," the student replied. "I am able to sleep on the ground, to eat nothing but raw grains, and I can carry huge loads on my back." The teacher took the young man by the arm and led ...

9. Holy Happiness

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

Psychiatrist Robert Coles tells a story about a poor black woman in New Orleans who sells her body almost every night to wealthy old men in order to take care of her five children. And each night this woman takes half of what she earns as a prostitute and gives it to the nuns who run the local soup kitchen. Coles asks the question, “Is this woman blessed or is she cursed?” From her perspective, I’...

10. How Angry Are You?

Luke 4:21-30

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

I am angry. I am angry that the open-minded, open-hearted denomination I have always loved has become more and more legalistic and polarized. I am angry that my country, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, has one of the highest rates of child mortality and child poverty of any industrialized nation in the world. I am angry that a huge percentage of US foreign aid goes to Israel ...

11. How Intelligent Is God’s Design?

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

I wonder. I wonder how the wise men would react to our current controversy over intelligent design. I wonder how these sages, who were the educated intellectuals and sophisticated scientists of their day would react to this public tug of war? On the one side are those who see creation as a random process of nature. On the other side are those who see creation as the intentional plan of a designer ...

12. Is God Invited?

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

We could always count on it. Every year, on the second Sunday of January, my dad would preach his drinking sermon — or, I should say his anti-drinking sermon. Having seen firsthand in my mother’s family the deathly cost of drunkenness, having spent more nights than he could remember offering pastoral support to families dealing with the fall-out of alcohol, Dad was convinced that alcohol was a dem...

13. It's Not About Me

Luke 6:39-49

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

In forty years of ordained ministry, I have never preached on this morning’s gospel text, which is a pretty good indication that I have been avoiding it. I have discovered over the years that the texts I ignore are the very ones that most describe me. And when it comes to specks and logs, I am an expert. But then most of us are. These three parables at the end of Luke 6 are the very end of Jesus’...

14. Kairos Commitments

Matthew 4:18-22, Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

One snowy day a few years ago, after I had declared the church a "nonessential" business and closed the office for the day, I experienced a luxury I often dream of, but rarely do. I climbed back into bed to read. But dare you think I was totally decadent, what I chose to read was our congregation's Annual Report. It turned out to be more enjoyable than any novel could have been. What a remarkable ...

15. Light Living

John 1:(1-9) 10-18

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

The best way to respond to today’s scripture reading is to say nothing — to let it stand in all its elegance, its mystery, its power. But being a preacher, I am genetically unable to say nothing. So I will try to share with you my deep need and my deep affection for this particular passage of God’s holy word. This is what John says to me, and so to you, this first Sunday in the new year. In the b...

16. Lite - Or Light?

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

There is, in this congregation, a running conversation as to what to call this structural wonder that rises above my head. Is it a dome? Or is it a lantern? The answer, of course, is both/and, depending on your perspective. It is a modern dome - the 1960s version of those elegant Byzantine basilicas that grace much of Europe, reminiscent of glittery mosaics and luminous paintings proclaiming the p...

17. Patterns of Possibility

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

A few years ago I revisited the places of my childhood. Sim and I piled the kids into the car and traveled to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where I was born, and then to Erie, Pennsylvania, where I lived from the age of five until the age of twelve. Together the four of us explored what Sim fondly called the Seven Sacred Susie Sightings: the house where I was born, the two elementary schools I attended, th...

18. Rejoicing in Reality

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

Our text says that Jesus "went up to the mountain" and, oh, what a beautiful mountain it is! The Mount of the Beatitudes is not all that high, but in Galilee it is the equivalent of Mount Everest. Stretched out below is the most fertile agricultural land in Israel, intricately laid out next to the jeweled sea, that breathtaking, blue prism reflecting the hot beauty of the Middle Eastern sun. A few...

19. Road Rage

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

When our children were small, a nice church lady named Chris made them a child-friendly creche. All the actors in this stable drama are soft and squishy and durable - perfect to touch and rearrange - or toss across the living room in a fit of toddler frenzy. The Joseph character has always been my favorite because he looks a little wild - red yarn spiking out from his head, giving him an odd look ...

20. Sheepish Shalom

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

Over 500 hundred years ago, a young man named Francis was living the good life. He was rich, handsome, pampered, popular. And though nominally a Christian, Jesus was a stranger to him. One day, Francis was forced to interact with a loathsome leper. In a moment of dreaded touch, the leper was transformed, literally becoming before his eyes the very image of Christ. And Francis was changed. From tha...

21. Swept Away!

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

It's the same year after year. On this most somnolent of American weekends when it takes three days to recover from one day of gluttony, this lazy weekend when some people sleep in for four days in a row - it is this Sunday that the church decides to defy the culture and catapult us into a new year - smacking us first with judgment and then with demand. It is this weekend that the liturgical calen...

22. Telling the Truth

Luke 3:7-18

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

Of the four gospel accounts in the New Testament, Luke is my favorite. Luke is warm and simple, full of love and joy, healing and grace. And Luke treats women better than any other book in the Bible. It is in Luke that we find the beloved Christmas story — with baby sighs and soft skin and angel wings. Then we get to Luke’s third chapter and the tone shifts. Warm, fuzzy Jesus is abruptly replaced ...

23. The Embassy at 6601

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

The year was 1967. Vietnam was exploding. The Nuclear Arms Race was escalating. The Women's Movement and the Civil Rights Movement were agitating the soul of our nation. And the Presbyterian church was trying to figure out how to witness to Jesus Christ in the midst of all this cultural chaos. 1967 was also the year I turned eighteen and graduated from high school. Though vaguely aware of all the...

24. The Future Present

Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

We Protestants don’t know what to do with Mary. Because the doctrines of the Catholic church have turned Mary into a sweet passive icon of virginal purity, we Protestants have been content to leave her out of our gallery of biblical saints — except of course, for her obligatory appearance in our Christmas pageants. Today in both scripture and song, we meet Mary again. The woman we meet this time ...

25. The Natural Look

Luke 9:28-36 (37-43)

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

It was a special day, a spiritual day, the passage from childhood into young adulthood. I was just shy of my thirteenth birthday and I was excited. For six months we had sat through boring classes memorizing the catechism, taking notes, trying to be good at God. After all, the closest thing I knew to God was my teacher, who happened to be my daddy. And I didn’t want to disappoint either God or Dad...

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