Good Friday Sermon

Good Friday 2011

The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Last night we stripped the altar, took all the usual things out of the church. Our service today is also sort of bare bones, missing many elements, the others in an unfamiliar order. It too is stripped down, until nothing is left but the cross. In a little bit we’ll bring the cross forward and have the opportunity to kneel in front of it, or venerate it however we feel moved.

            It’s not always a comfortable thing to do, facing the cross is hard for us, but how much more emotional and terrible it was for those who were with Jesus that scary night, that awful day. By the time Jesus got to the cross, most of his friends were gone. Peter wasn’t there, most of the 12 were in hiding. Jesus’ mother was there. As any mother would be.

Sermon for Fourth Sunday in Lent

Lent 4 April 3, 2011, The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Scripture of the day is here.

Early Christians took baptismal preparation very seriously. Today, at our most perfunctory it can be just a quick meeting in the pastor’s study, but in those days it was three years of study and learning. All leading up to baptism at Easter, almost always at the Easter Vigil, the crown and pinnacle of the church year. The scripture passages we read on the Sundays of Lent were their textbook. And this story of the healing of the man born blind was one of the most important of the texts they studied. We know this because it appears more than 7 times in early catacomb art, generally as an illustration of baptism.

Water in the Desert

Hello friends,
One scripture passage I didn't get to in this Sunday's sermon was the one from Exodus, about Moses finding water in the desert for the thirsty People of Israel. It's a very thought-provoking story, though, and I think that's in part because we have so much in common with those thirsty complaining folks who gave Moses such a hard time. We worry. We're anxious. We think what we need is not going to be there for us. 


Moses stops at a place in the desert where there is no water. This is unusual -- desert nomads (like Moses's wife Zipporah, who was with them) usually traveled from oasis to oasis. It makes us wonder, why the unscheduled stop? Did they overextend themselves, or not go far enough? Did they run out of water because they didn't conserve it? Whatever the case, they got off track. 


And don't we get off track in similar ways? Unlike most of the world we have plentiful clean water, but we can sometimes pay insufficient attention to our own basic needs and resources. We over-extend or over-consume. Here it's water, but what about  time, energy, sleep, silence, play? Do we plan like nomads and move carefully from oasis to oasis, from sabbath to sabbath, or do we get stuck in the middle with nothing to drink, burnt out and exhausted, like these guys?

This Lent, make sure you plan plenty of time and replenishment at the oasis that you need.

Peace,
Kate
P.S. If such refreshment moves you to share with others, you might take a peak here.

Atonement Theology Unpacked.. a little bit

Dear friends,

Yesterday in my sermon I brought up the topic of atonement theology (i.e. how Jesus's death saves us) because I think it's something very important for practicing Christians to have a grasp of. In today's pluralistic society, it's more and more common that a friend might ask about what we believe, or have a mis-understanding of Christianity based on TV evangelists. Or maybe we ourselves have questions about how God could possibly need Jesus to die. I only just touched on the topic in my sermon, giving the highlights of three of the dozens of ways theologians explain atonement.

So here is some unpacking, and to keep you reading I've put my own favorite theory at the very end....

Sermon for Third Sunday in Lent

Hello friends,

Here is my sermon from yesterday. You can find the scripture readings here. I realize I opened a bit of a can of worms with all those atonement theologies (it was very hard to summarize!) so I'll post another blog post unpacking that a little more for those who are interested.

Sermon for March 27 2011 by the Rev. Kate Ekrem
If you’ve been reading the Redeemer blog, you know that last Sunday I got to have dinner with the youth group and we played “stump the priest.” And they did! Well, at least it’s easier than Crainium, but they asked some tough questions. But the one question I think I really did not give a good answer to was, what does it mean that Jesus saves us? We say he died for our sins, but how did his dying fix the problem of human sin?

Youth Group Stumps the Priest

Sunday night I got to join the youth group for their Sunday night dinner, which they cook together each week as a time of support and sharing. I was foolish enough to say "ask me anything" and they had a lot of really great questions. We decided "stump the priest" was fun, and plan to do it again. But I wonder if any of you could field any of these questions that the youth group asked me. What would you have answered them? Are any of these questions which also puzzle you?

* What do Episcopalians believe about creation and evolution?

* What was Jesus' childhood and young adulthood like? Did people treat him differently?

* When we die, do we go to heaven immediately or do we "fall asleep" and get resurrected on the Last Day?

* Are some parts of the Bible antisemitic, and if so, how do we deal with that?

* Is the devil real or just a metaphor for evil in the world?

* What about people who do bad things yet go to church and people who do good things yet don't believe in God?

* What does "Jesus died to save us" really mean? Why doesn't the world look more saved?

Whew. I think there may be a sermon shaping up out of all our discussion. Or maybe a sermon series...

Sermon for First Sunday in Lent

Hello friends,

Here is my sermon from yesterday. I always have second thoughts after preaching and in this case am not sure I was so fair to poor St. Augustine. Bill Fortier pointed out in yesterday's adult forum that often we are guilty of repeating what other writers have said about someone rather than reading the original for ourselves. I think I probably did that to the good Bishop of Hippo. Back to the original sources to make sure I got it right...

By the way, if you missed Bill's "Bread, Bible, and Battles", do come join us on Feb 27th! Never have I heard someone so compellingly connect church history and modern brain science. Fascinating stuff!

My ideas about sin in this sermon are very much influenced by Marcus Borg's book, The Heart of Christianity, which I recommend highly.

Sermon for 1 Lent, March 13 2011 by the Rev. Kate Ekrem

Today I’d like to talk about sin! Oh good, you are all still here. So, raise your hand if sin means for you something that makes you feel guilty, or you think is supposed to make you feel guilty, or is just a word you