Foundation

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 | Psalm 119:33-40 | 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23 | Matthew 5:38-48

Jeremy Richards

For better or worse, my dad and I love to give each other a hard time. My dad especially loves to tease people. So what I’m about to reveal to you is totally in keeping with the relationship we’ve always had. I’m not a horrible person.

There are a few stories – only 2 or 3 – where my dad, well, let’s just say missed the mark. And it’s become expected, you might even say it’s become a tradition, for me to bring these stories up at some point whenever he visits. There’s always something that will prompt a story. Maybe he’ll give me a hard time about something and I’ll respond, “Well, remember that time…” or if we’re out and we see something that prompts one of these stories I might bring it up.

River of Life

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 | Psalm 119:1-8 | 1 Corinthians 3:1-9| Matthew 5:21-37

Jeremy Richards

As a child, I used to sing the song “Spring Up O Well.” Do any of you know it? It’s pretty simple. It goes like this:

I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me

Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see

Open prisons doors, sets the captive free

I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me.

Spring up, o well (splish splash), within my soul!

Spring up, oh well (splish splash), and make me whole!

Spring up, oh well (splish splash), and give to me

That life, abundantly.

Gettin' Down

Micah 6:1-8 | Psalm 15 | 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 | Matthew 5:1-12

Jeremy Richards

Watch video: https://youtu.be/HnQ89jZvZD0

In the song we just listened to – “Getting Ready to Get Down” – Josh Ritter tells the story of a young girl whose parents and pastor are beginning to worry about her. Apparently, she isn’t fitting “proper Christian girl” mold, so they send to a “little Bible college in Missouri” thinking a Christian education will straighten her out.

The Knowledge of Jesus

Isaiah 63:7-9 | Hebrews 2:10-18 | Matthew 2:13-23

Jeremy Richards

We love to put things in categories, don’t we? We love to draw boundaries, to section things off. It’s how we understand the world. We divide everything! Cities into neighborhoods, animals into species and sub-species, academic subjects into specific schools of thought (continental philosophy vs. analytic philosophy), and so on. But there’s nothing we love dividing more than people. We divide people up by race, gender, sexuality, culture, class, country of origin, ability, hair color, musical preference, hobbies, and the list goes on. Just think of high school: you’ve got the classic categories like nerds and cheerleaders and jocks. And then you’ve got sub-categories – not just jocks but the soccer kids and the basketball kids and the baseball kids.

The Real and the Really Real

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 | Romans 1:1-7 | Matthew 1:18-25

Jeremy Richards

The great Catholic lay theologian G.K. Chesterton said, and I apologize for all the gendered language, Chesterton said it not me, but when he says “man” know he means “humanity.” Chesterton said,

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but…free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that.

Who Are We Waiting For?

Isaiah 35:1-10 | Psalm 146:5-10 | Matthew 11:2-11

Jeremy Richards

Our Psalm reading this morning begins: “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”

The question we might pose, though, is: Who is God? Perhaps it’s true that we’ll be happy if our hope and help is in the God of Jacob. The problem however, is we don’t know exactly who this God is. It seems like every time I think I’ve got my finger on just who God is, God goes and surprises me – sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

The Freedom of Repentance

Isaiah 11:1-10 | Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 | Romans 15:4-13 | Matthew 3:1-12

Jeremy Richards

Don’t you just hate sermons on repentance? I hate sermons on repentance.

When my sister and I were young enough to still take baths together, but old enough that we didn’t need supervision, there was an evening that we were in the bath and I had a bright idea. I suggested that we pretend the bathtub was a boat that was sinking, and we needed to bail out all the water. By the time my mom returned to check on us, we’d emptied half the bathtub onto the bathroom floor of a house we were renting. My parents ended up having to pay for a new floor to be put in in the bathroom! Needless to say, we were in big trouble.