“I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.” Those words have become the mantra for this generation. What do these words mean? “I’m spiritual.” I’m in touch with powers out there and powers in here? I’m sensitive to the good energy that flows through the world and exists between people? I’m open to be touched by something larger than myself? “…but I’m not religious.” I don’t go to church. I don’t want people cramming rules down my throat. Wherever the answer is to be found, it won’t be in Christianity. “I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.”

We live like people who expect to be around forever. Many have ceased to watch the eastern sky. Many no longer pray “Maranatha—come quickly, Lord Jesus.” Many would frankly be disappointed to see all of this come to an end. We’ve settled in—we’ve bought long term CD’s, built houses and lands, gotten comfortable. We’ve given our place of watchfulness over to conspiracy nuts and book peddlers. But make no mistake—Jesus said there will come a time when the King will appear in all His glory. There will be a reckoning. There will be judgment. The old will be rent apart…all things will become new, and just, and full of life.

President Obama is in trouble again. He has been caught on tape, once again, bowing to a foreign head of State. First to the king of Saudi Arabia, now we find him bowing to the emperor of Japan. An editorial in our local paper opined: “Kings and emperors have been treated with courtesy, of course, but to bow is—yes, I’ll say it—un-American.”....
Imagine how upset the pundits would be if they knew that most of citizens of America bow down to foreign powers every day. Constantly.

Today we find Jesus and his disciples watching money drop into the offering can. Jesus sat with his disciples in the temple courtyard, watching the action in the Court of women, where there were 13 offering boxes known as “the trumpets”—folks put coins into large metal trumpet-shaped funnels and listened to the racket as the coins went down. Each box was designated for a different ministry: Food for the priests, oil for the lamps, pew cushions or weed whackers for use around the temple.

It is so good to be back with you after a three month sabbatical. As most of you know, I’ve been on the road…in the air…down the trail…in the desert, at the ocean, journeying for two months in the back country in Africa with a month in Europe. This has been the longest stretch I’ve gone without preaching in twenty five years. This morning is a kind of homecoming for me, and we also welcome our students this day, some back from college break…some here for the first time. We’re so glad to have you with us. So let me speak this morning a word of celebration. A message of homecoming. A word of welcome.

Our political process these days is characterized by so much ugliness, so much mean-spirited ill-will, so much fear, so much cynicism. May our faith in Christ call us to be kind, even tempered, patient, helpful. May the example of Christ make us open to people of different backgrounds. May Christ’s example make our hearts soft to those who are suffering. Let’s be a part of solving the sicknesses, the woes, the hurts, the poverty of our nation and our world.