Brian's Sermons

When I was in seminary, our neighborhood was a regular target for Mormon missionaries. We lived across the street from a Mormon family, so whenever we would have block parties, they would invite the Mormon Elders over. One thing I realized in talking to these young men was that we could talk for hours without really understanding what the other one was saying. The problem was that we talked right past one another. We used the same words, but they had different meanings. There are words we sometimes find in church that are unclear or just don’t carry the same meanings in our culture as they did when they were written. For example, I remember being rather confused that my church would sing “How Great Thou Aren’t ” and that we would pray, “Our Father, who aren’t in heaven…” Or how about the familiar words of the 23 rd Psalm which declare that “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.” There are other words we tend to overuse to the extent that the word loses its meaning. This...

Gym class could be a cruel place. There were some kids who were really fast runners, and they got picked first. Then the most popular kids got picked and then the captains’ friends. Finally all who were left were the chubby kid, the clumsy kid, and the unpopular kid, and the teams argued over who had to take them. At least at recess they were allowed to do their own thing and weren’t forced to play sports. For those few short minutes they could ignore the fact that they didn’t belong. But when the bell rang, they were dragged back to reality, a reality that hurt. And maybe home wasn’t any better. Absent or uninvolved parents. An older sibling who seemed to “get” everything on the first try. Maybe tonight would be the night when someone would call and invite you out… or maybe not. Alone. Not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not athletic enough. Not rich enough. Not popular. The Christmas story is full of these characters. When Gabriel meets Mary, she is an unmarried woman....

I grew up in the midst of a generation who was told at every opportunity: you can grow up to be whatever you want to be. As long as we put our minds to it and as long as we put in the work, we whatever we aspired to be could come true. As I got a little older, I figured out that this wasn’t always true. Even though I was the center on my sixth grade intramural basketball team, I’m not holding my breath waiting for the NBA to call. The point is, there are things that are just not reasonable for us to expect to be able to do. There are things that we can do and things we can’t. Unfortunately, I have too often seen people giving up because of things they can’t do or often because they have been told continuously that they cannot do something. So often I see young people or new Christians who idealistically believe they can change the world, but as they get older, the crab mentality sets in. Crab mentality refers to crabs in a bucket – individually every one of them could escape from...

When I was in Kindergarten, our class took a field trip to the police station. I only remember one aspect of that trip; our class, teacher and all, went into a large cell and the officer closed that door. It was terrifying. As a pastor, I have had occasions where I’ve visited people in jail – it seems like the process is different everywhere you go. In Wapakoneta, I had to go up to a two-way mirror and show ID and who I was coming to see. Then I would go through a metal detector and the first door would open. I would go into a short hallway with two-way mirrors surrounding me, and the door would close behind me with an ominously loud clang. There is something very scary and permanent when the jail doors close behind you. It is easy to recognize that someone in jail is imprisoned. There are physical bars, locked doors, and sometimes razor wire and guard towers. But what can be harder to recognize is the fact that imprisonment is our basic human condition. Last week when I talk...

When I was growing up, one of the highlights of my summer was church camp. I loved being in that Christian environment for a week, memorizing scripture, doing silly skits, making new friends, swimming in the pool, and all the games and challenges they had for us. One year we had a giant game of hide and seek where all the campers went and hid and the staff got the job of “seeking.” Our camp had a nice wooded area in the back, not a deep forest by any stretch of the imagination, but generally wooded, and I found this awesome hiding place in the bushes beneath a large tree. Any serious hide and seek player knows that absolute stillness is a must if you don’t want to get caught, so after I slithered down under the bushes, I made myself comfortable and didn’t move. Now remember that it was dark out, and deep into a week of church camp – lots of activities and less than optimal amounts of sleep… so down in the bushes, I fell asleep. When I woke up, at first I didn’t know where I was, ...