Author: Adam Thomas

The Shepherd and the King

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Sermon for Sunday, November 26, 2023 || Reign of Christ A || Ezekiel:11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25:31-46

Next Sunday we begin again – another new year in our cycle of celebrations of God’s presence in our midst. But as the 90s band Semisonic reminds us, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” That end happens today. Today we end the current church year with the feast that marks this ending. For years now, I’ve been calling it “Reign of Christ” Sunday instead of its more common name, “Christ the King” Sunday. This morning, I’d like to explain why I made that shift because its theological implications are important for our walks of faith. My apologies ahead of time since this sermon is going to be pretty heavy on history. Hopefully, I have risen far enough from my tryptophan coma to make the next ten minutes make sense.

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Season Six of the Podcast for Nerdy Christians!

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I’ve been remiss over the last several weeks in not mentioning that Season Six of The Podcast for Nerdy Christians has been humming along since September. Carrie and I changed up the format a bit this season so it’s not quite as time-consuming to produce (namely, we dropped the book club part), so the episodes are shorter. So far this season we’ve talked about Doctor Who, Barbie, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Disney remakes, and Star Wars: Andor. With four more episodes to launch, I invite you to give a listen on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve never listened to the podcast before, Season Six is as good a place as any to start. But if your a completionist, then we suggest jumping back to Season 2 (and then if you really like it, Season 1 where we were still getting our sea legs, sort of like Star Trek: The Next Generation).

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We Will Serve the Lord

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Sermon for Sunday, November 12, 2023 || Proper 27A || Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

I began my very first paid job when I was fifteen. I worked at the independent bookstore, which my mother managed. I served the customers by offering recommendations, ringing up their orders, and gift-wrapping their purchase. I loved that job. My second job was waiting tables at the Logan’s Roadhouse, which is one of those steak restaurants where customers are encouraged to throw their peanut husks on the floor. I served the guests by taking their orders, refilling drinks, and sweeping up those countless peanut shells. I did not love that job. I worked at Olive Garden as a busser, as a camp counselor, and as an assistant at my seminary’s teaching library. Then I got ordained and started serving as a priest. Serving in the church is the only, what I would call, “adult” job I’ve ever had.

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A Better World, with Help from Star Trek

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Sermon for Sunday, November 5, 2023 || All Saints A || Revelation 7:9-17; Matthew 5:1-12

All of this morning’s readings from Holy Scripture point us towards a vision of a better world: a world of mutual understanding, equal justice, and creative peace, all knit together by the God who brings all things back into right relationship with each other. I see this vision in scripture and it brings me, weeping, to my knees at the knowledge that fulfillment of this vision is simultaneously so close – as close as God’s presence in our midst – and seemingly so far, as we humans choose again and again paths that lead away from understanding, justice, and peace. Today, as we celebrate the lives of all the saints who have led humanity towards fulfillment of God’s dream for creation, I’d like to talk about this vision because only by proclaiming it from the rooftops will we ever be able to help make God’s dream a reality.

Of course, to enter into this discussion, I’m going to start with something intensely nerdy. Star Trek.

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What We Mean When We Say ‘Love’

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Sermon for Sunday, October 29, 2023 || Proper 25A || Matthew 22:34-46

Today’s sermon is about love, and I’m going to throw in a few movie quotes to spice it up, okay? In this morning’s Gospel reading, a group of Pharisees gathers together and comes up with what they think is a doozy of a question to test Jesus. One of them (and here Matthew makes sure we know the questioner is a lawyer) asks Jesus, “Teacher, what commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Jesus doesn’t hesitate. He borrows from the book of Deuteronomy when he says, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’” Then Jesus takes this commandment to its logical conclusion: “This is the greatest and first commandment,” he says. “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

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The Writing Retreat

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I don’t have a sermon for you this week because I was at a writing retreat over the weekend. I had never been on a retreat like this before, and I’m so glad I went. I got to meet people in person that I know from the Internet. And I got to meet a whole bunch of folks I didn’t know. We all shared one thing in common. We are writers.

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The God of Peace

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Sermon for Sunday, October 15, 2023 || Proper 23A || Philippians 4:1-9

In this week of bullets and bombs, of terror and retaliation, of so many dead in a part of the world that always seems one explosion away from the end, I began writing this sermon with zero words on my lips or in my heart. So I did what I always do in that situation. I read poetry, because poetry does not ask you to make sense of the world, only to see the world with new eyes that might, in time, retrain your heart towards beauty. I’m going to begin and end this sermon with poems and we’ll see how the middle shakes out.

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Living the Wisdom of the Ten Commandments

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Sermon for Sunday, October 8, 2023 || Proper 22A || Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Our first reading today from the book of Exodus recounts God speaking to Moses what we call the Ten Commandments. Whenever I read the Ten Commandments, I think of that great gag in Mel Brooks’s wildly inappropriate film History of the World, Part One, when Brooks, playing Moses, comes down the mountain with three tablets and says, “The Lord has given unto you these fifteen…” but then he drops a tablet and it shatters on the ground… “Ten! Ten Commandments!”

It’s pretty telling that this joke from an old movie is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about the commandments. To be honest, for a long time they weren’t all that central to my practice of Christianity. I’ve always known them in the same vague way that you sort of know the words to old folk songs – you can sing along with them, but probably not do a solo.

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The Mind of Christ

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Sermon for Sunday, October 1, 2023 || Proper 21A || Philippians 2:1-13

I’ve preached many, many times over the years about the famous words we heard this morning from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Many biblical scholars regard these words about Christ’s descent to be one of us and his subsequent ascension as one of the first Christian hymns in existence. It’s an important passage that I’ve read over and over again, but this time a few words caught me that I hadn’t noticed before: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Another translation says, “Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” A third says, “Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus.”

That got me thinking. In what ways can we live into this mindset, this attitude of Christ? So, I’ve compiled a Top Ten list for this morning’s sermon. Each one of these deserves its own entire sermon, but instead of dwelling on one particular piece of the mind of Christ, I thought I’d share ten in the hopes that one or more will set a fire in you for further reflection and action. All right. Ready for the Top Ten ways to embrace the mindset of Christ?

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Generous Justice

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Sermon for Sunday, September 24, 2023 || Proper 20A || Matthew 20:1-16

This is one of those Gospel passages that leads to some very…spirited…discussions at Bible studies. There’s just something about this parable that rubs people the wrong way. We get all hung up on the fact that the various groups of workers in the vineyard don’t seem to be getting treated fairly. Some only work one hour, and they get the same pay as those who worked twelve hours! What?! We get stuck on that way of reading the parable and miss the larger point that Jesus is making. We miss the point that the generous vineyard owner keeps coming out and welcoming people into the vineyard all day long and treats even those who only had the opportunity to work one hour as if they had worked all day. That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like, says Jesus. 

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