Three Years Later

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 | Luke 17:11-19

Jeremy Richards

Audio recording: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/10-13-19-3-years-later-jeremy-richards/id1479727299?i=1000453370711

3 years ago, almost to the day, on Sunday, October 9th, 2016, I walked through the doors of this church as a pastoral candidate – wearing a suit and tie – which was cause for the only harsh criticism I got that day – and my stomach full of butterflies. As I walked through the doors on the far right side, wondering if those were the right doors to enter through – something I’m sure all of us wondered the first time we came here – I wondered how this huge building could ever become familiar to me. As I met new person after new person – people I hoped would soon be my congregation – I wondered how I’d ever remember all your names, how I’d ever be comfortable with the title “pastor,” and how I’d ever get you to trust me enough to invite me into your lives.

Children or Slaves, Freedom or Obligation?

2 Timothy 1:1-14 | Luke 17:5-10

Jeremy Richards 

Audio recording: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/10-06-19-children-or-slaves-freedom-or-obligation-jeremy/id1479727299?i=1000453223509

If you’re like me, you might cringe a bit at Jesus’ words this morning – at least the second part. The first part about the mustard seed isn’t so bad, but I’m guessing the verses equating the disciples to slaves aren’t the ones you’ll be posting on your Facebook anytime soon. I doubt this parable where Jesus makes himself, or at least God the parent, out to be a slave owner ever made it into a Hallmark card. And if your unchurched friend asked you what Christianity is all about, you probably wouldn’t say it’s like being a slave who does everything their supposed to but, in the end, is still considered worthless by their master. We’d opt instead for verses about God’s unfailing love, about Christ’s compassion, about reconciliation and restoration, about new creation, not worthless slaves.

A Case for Prayer

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 | 1 Timothy 2:1-7

Jeremy Richards

In my first semester of seminary, I took a class called “Introduction to Christian Spirituality.” One of the assignments was to watch a documentary called Into Great Silence, about Grande Chartreuse, a Carthusian monastery located high in the Chartreuse mountains in the French Alps. For the cocktail lovers among us, this is the very monastery that makes the liqueur Chartreuse (but that’s not really relevant to the documentary or our purposes this morning).

On the Basis of Love

Philemon 1-22

Jeremy Richards 

The 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865 and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865. According to the Library of Congress’ website, this Amendment formally abolished slavery.[1] Only it didn’t. In fact, it spends almost as much time, almost as many words, explaining the exception to the rule as it does actually “abolishing” slavery.

Nasty Disturbing Uncomfortable Things!

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

 Jeremy Richards

J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit begins with Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit, sitting outside his quaint hole in the ground with its round door, having a nice smoke out of his tobacco pipe. Bilbo comes from a long line of respectable hobbits on one side, the Baggins, but his mother’s side, the Tooks, are known to be a bit strange. Some of his Took ancestors were known to go on adventures and even enjoy them! Respectable hobbits don’t go adventures. To quote Bilbo, adventures are “nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”

Burn It Down

Luke 12:49-56

Jeremy Richards

When I was a kid, every summer around this time of year my dad would leave for long stretches of time, often a week to 10 days. I remember waiting for him to come home the way children often wait for their parents to return. I have one memory in particular, playing out in our front yard, when my dad came around the bend in our little subdivision in our old 1970-something VW camper van. His hair was a mess, his face was covered in grime and soot. I ran to the edge of the yard with excitement and waited for him to get out of the van. When he picked me up, he smelled like smoke. He had been away fighting wildfires.

With Cords of Kindness, with Bonds of Love

Hosea 11:1-11

Jeremy Richards        

Audio recording: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/08-04-19-cords-kindness-bonds-love-jeremy-richards/id1479727299?i=1000453223510

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I broke my right arm – both the radius and the ulna. I was chasing my friend Matt along a sidewalk and a tripped over a flower pot. We had been with Matt’s mom, but somehow, almost instantly after it happened, my mom showed up. Matt’s mom drove us to the hospital and my mom sat in the back with me as I laid my head on her lap. Matt didn’t help matters by repeatedly telling me how his brother had broken his arm and had to get a screw in his arm and how he had heard is brother screaming in the next room over when this happened. I spent most of the drive to the hospital screaming myself, not out of pain but out of fear of getting a screw put in my arm.

Streambeds and Olive Trees

Psalm 52 | Colossians 1:15-28

Jeremy Richards 

Once there was a little streambed, high up in the mountains. Despite being a streambed, despite being made for water to flow through it, the little streambed couldn’t remember that ever happening. For as long as it could remember it had been dry. It was made for a purpose, but that purpose wasn’t being fulfilled. The dirt along the streambed was cracked and hard. And as it sat there, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, debris started falling and rolling and growing on top of it. It was becoming unrecognizable as a streambed. It was clogged and congested with all manner of twigs and brush and dead leaves and thorns. Even worse, trees had fallen across it and hurt it. They had broken parts of the streambed’s banks. The streambed thought it could never hold water now. These trees that now had become rotting, dead logs, would never let water flow through it, and besides there was too much debris in the way.

Jesus Saves

Colossians 1:1-14

Jeremy Richards 

A couple of weeks ago, I officiated the wedding of Brie’s cousin Harry and his wife Laura in Rhode Island. It was a beautiful wedding right on the ocean. Harry and Laura aren’t especially religious, so I went pretty light on the religious stuff, but, at one point, while equating love to the vast ocean the ceremony took place beside, I couldn’t help interjecting a bit of religion in there. I said, “I am a Baptist preacher, so I can’t resist reminding us that God created all the cosmos out of love, that we are made in and for love, that God, our divine Parent, the one we are made in the image of, is love.”