Brewing Theology With Teer

Baptism of the Lord - Acts 19:1-17, Year BIn the waters of our baptism, God has clothed us in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and given us a full pardon. The baptism offered by John was not able to do this and if we think today that the person doing the sprinkling, pouring, or dunking has any control over what is happening in this holy moment we are wholly mistaken.Professor James Torrance put it best: “But it is not the water, not the church, not the minister, not my faith, not my dying and rising, which forgives and heals. It is Christ who has done this for us and in us by the Spirit. So, we are baptized ‘in the name of Christ’ - not our own name - and we are baptized into a life of union with Christ, of dying and rising with Christ, in a life of communion.”In your baptism, you have been raised into a new Hope, and that Hope is new life in the life and death of Jesus Christ. “Remember Your Baptism and Be Thankful.”

Mark 13:24-37We find ourselves in a time of already and not yet. The Kingdom of God is here, inaugurated in the Christmas manger we look toward, and not yet fully realized as we await Christ's return. As Advent people, we are doorkeepers and people of the watch. Waiting seems more intense this year, as we wait in the pandemic, waiting for a vaccine, waiting for the day when masks a necessary accessory, waiting for life to get back to normal. The Advent waiting is of a different sort. We are stuck in a time when we can either wait for the promised redemptive work of God in Christ or a miraculous, self-achieving salvation through our own actions. 2020 has reminded us of what many in the rest of the world already knew and lived with every day... that the world is not as God would have it, that just as often God seems absent as present, that “Why do bad things happen…?” are still questions with no answers. We’re all like those in Mark’s parable. We are waiting based solely on the knowledge of the Master’s past ac

November 15, 2020Ephesians 4:1-16The unity we see is already present.The peace we long for is here.The absence of division and fraction is here.It is just like Jesus says it is, like a treasure hidden in a field, buried in your backyard. Just because you do not realize it’s there. Just because you refuse to believe it’s there. Just because you won’t risk looking like a fool and go digging up your yard it t doesn’t mean it’s not there. It does not mean it’s not real and true. It doesn’t mean you are not already sitting on a fortune and could be living out of those riches.This realization can be a “monumental, historic, scary, and angst-filled” moment. The release of agency is not something we have been trained or formed to do outside of the church. And frankly, with the focus more on division as of late, the Church has allowed this “monumental, historic, scary, and angst-filled” shift to fall by the wayside, allowing us to become dismissive of the history, traditions, and rituals that have set the church apart

Do you have swagger and confidence? What if I told you that swagger and confidence were traits of followers of Jesus? But... that swagger doesn't come from where you think it does.Philippians 3:4b-12

We now live in the realest world, already transformed by Christ. Church, at its best, is just renewing our minds once a week to realize what Christ has already accomplished in spite of, and for, us.The transformation we seek and the transformation we experience does not come as the result of our greatness or ability to transform ourselves. To not be conformed to this world and instead being transformed means we rely on the greatness and the ability of God. We are transformed, the world around us is formed by what has happened in Christ and by what is happening here today in worship. What we do tomorrow, through the rest of the week is a direct result of the collision that has happened here in worship. A collision between the world as we know it – broken and in need of rescue – and the real world, established in the truth and power of Christ’s ultimate reign. This is the world when Christ reigns over all of creation, when the sick are healed, division mended, and enemies forgive one another.

July 26, 2020Romans 8:26-39“Who will condemn us?Who is against us?Who can separate us from the love of Christ?”Paul continues, “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” Jesus told his followers that the extravagance of God’s love, manifested in the Kingdom of God, is like that of a tiny mustard seed. It can appear small or insignificant, but when the mustard seed grows, the seed becomes a tree. “It is the greatest of shrubs” with room for the birds of the air to come and nest.The truth is, it is cheap theology to look a the happenings of the world and to assume that God is in some way asleep at the wheel or worse punishing creation. To do so ignores not only what Saint Paul wrote to the church in Rome but also the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul’s rhetorical questions leave the gate open and open the possibility for us to grossly misinterpret, running amuck with the Amazing G

Romans 8:1-11Paul’s point is that sin - manifested by “peril…famine...sword...” - has been defeated by the cross of Christ. To live according to the Spirit is to live with the free confidence and joy that all that stands against God has already been defeated. By the Grace of God, we are free to set aside the agenda of life in the flesh - life consumed by us verse them, inequality and injustice, hatred and fear - and instead, being filled with the Spirit of Christ live life in a realm ruled by God. A world where Jesus is indeed Lord and the ways of the flesh fall by the wayside.Life in the Spirit moves us from condemnation and guilt to a life that is not our own. This is the life we put on as we emerge from the waters of our baptism. A life we cannot earn for ourselves, rather a life of freedom received by Grace. A life that makes is possible for us to set aside rebellion and to be swept up in the Spirit of Christ.A life free from what separates us.A life that frees us to just get along.A life free from condem

Matthew 10:40-42Compassion and mercy are the model given to us by Jesus for loving and welcoming every person who comes to us in His name. The difficult task is that it will take more than a little bit of grace to open the doors of the church that have been closed to so many people - the LGBTQ+ community, single or divorced adults, those who haven’t opened a Bible in decades or ever. Then there are the doors of the church that have been used to segregate Christ’s body simply because the color of someone’s skin does not match ours. The task before us is monumental, and frankly long overdue in being addressed. But the Good News in Jesus words are not only for the ones being welcomed or ushered to the balcony. The Good News also is for the church where people are sent to the balcony to make us more comfortable, the church where a hand of welcome is not extended to someone whose hand looks different from our own, and the church where we may not participate in such actions but we certainly are not doing anything t

The message of Pentecost is that everything has been done. Done for everyone.The Holy Spirit at Pentecost, using every language known so that there would be no mistake, no mistranslation, no nuance missed, or nonverbal misconstrued came so that those present and us today might trust, we might believe, so that we will have faith grounded in the hard to believe, impossible and yet all too real promise made by God in Jesus Christ - the perfection demanded in the Law, obedience, and perfection, has been given to you, has been given to everyone, not by what we can do but rather by what has been done.The outpouring of the power of God will touch everyone and there is nothing we can do to stop this. Try as we might to sell Jesus flavored Law - be a good person and do your best to do good things - doing our best to hide our tells behind masks of unwritten or rewritten church law, the Holy Spirit at Pentecost tells us something else.New life for everything and everyone is present in Jesus Christ. The one who while asc

When I was a kid, like many of my friends, I was the proud owner of a rock tumbler. A rock tumbler allowed us to take a variety of rocks we found in the neighborhood and polish them to the point that the rocks were like gems. As a kid all we needed were a few rocks from the neighbor’s driveway, some polishing grit, and a little bit of patience. This recipe for success allowed us to (at least in our minds) print money. We would load up our rock tumblers and let them run for a few days and after we washed away the polishing grit, we believed we had diamonds and rubies in our hands.If our parents had only seen the potential in our childhood get rich quick scheme, maybe they could have retired early and today I would be the founder and CEO of Polished Rocks Inc., you’re one stop shop for fine polished driveway stones.There are few passages in the New Testament that pull us in with rich metaphorical language like our reading today. God’s grace and our election through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ grab our atte

The culmination of the Emmaus story is found in the disciples being able to see the Risen Lord in the breaking of bread, but they are unable to see the Risen Lord without Jesus’ Bible study to end all Bible studies – explaining how the entire Old Testament is actually about him. For us, as followers of Christ, we believe God’s Plan A has always been Jesus and the revelation of the coming Messiah, now present in our Risen Lord, is everywhere in the Old Testament. Jesus as Lord is the Big Picture we miss when we, like the disciples on their way to Emmaus, hone in on a detail of the story and when that detail does not suffice we, as a failing art critic would attempt to do, make sense of the story of the person of Jesus that fails to show the bigger picture – that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ Sin and Death no longer hold their boot to the throat of what God created and Jesus reigns over.While we may be hunkered down, like a teenager grounded and unable to leave the house, and wonderi

If we leave the story at “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven” we miss the abruptness with which Lent draws to a close, the closing is not drawn out, and the quickness with which Holy Week moves. Jesus entered the Holy City and before a week goes by, he will have been crucified. He will be dead. In less than a week the man who entered the city peacefully, with no show military force, will tell his disciples to put away their swords as he was taken from a garden, arrested and then killed. The quickness with which we move into Holy Week, beginning with this procession, is a shock we experience year after year. Rev. Fleming Rutledge describes the movement as beginning with “triumph” and ending in “catastrophe.” The “turmoil” Jesus caused as he entered the Holy City stirred up such alarm among the religious and political leaders that the only thing left to do to this peaceful prophet was to kill him. And in a moment of brief clarity th

No amount of cancelations or changes in plans can cancel or change this condition we all face. But in Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, the One who came down from on high and took on our earthly existence we are the recipients of the promise that Death does not get the last word. The day is coming when God is going to shout, “Come out!” and all of the death will be unbound, their grave clothes will no longer be necessary. The words of resurrection spoken to Lazarus are words of resurrection spoken to us. God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel say that the dry bones shall live again. Where life and hope seem gone, in dust and ash, and in the grave God is going to shout, “Come out!” Over the past few weeks we have been reflecting on who we are as followers of Christ. As Saint Paul put it, we ‘adopt the same mind that was in Christ.” Who are we? We are resurrection people. We are people who do not believe Death holds the final word. A week after week we proclaim, boldly, Christ resurrected. As Lent begins to draw to a cl

Skipping over Jesus’ bit of being born anothen, preferring the safer-waters of John 3:16, we miss that we have been born anothen. We have been born again. We have been born from above, born anew.Jesus’ resurrection sealed this for all us. Everyone. Even those of us who prefer John 3:16 over John 3:3 or 3:5.This Lenten season we are considering what it means, as Saint Paul put it, to “adopt the mind of Christ.”[3] To adopt the mind of Christ is to acknowledge that regardless if you have ever come forward during an altar call, regardless if you have your born again date circled on the calendar, regardless if you attend a “born again, Bible-believing” church or the happy middle ground of mainline Protestantism, you have already been accepted by God. The faithfulness of Christ to the will of God is what gives us life. This is something we could never do on our own.So while you may have a date you can remember - confirmation as a teenager, an altar call way back when, or just a few years ago - the anniversary date

God is willing to risk our disobedience in hopes that we will freely turn towards God and proclaim that we are followers of Jesus Christ, that we have adopted the attitude of Christ.” Not followers up to a certain point.Not followers with prerequisites - God must first prove something in hopes that we might repent and follow Christ. Throughout our Lenten journey we will turn towards Christ, turning away from the temptation of sin, and consider the question “Who am I?”It can often feel as though we are people, who when presented with the discomfort of temptation will lean into the comforts of this world, through our own devices and means. But our Lenten journey is an invitation to lean into the faithfulness of Christ. Our faithfulness to our Lenten fasts will wane. We will be tempted to break our fast or to test God’s faithfulness as a way to ignore the suffering around us or to accept the trappings of this life. This journey we find ourselves on, a journey that will ultimately lead us to the cross, is an invi

Every time we hear Jesus’ invitation to his table and we share bread and wine, taking seriously his invitation to all people - the poor and the rich, the meek and the powerful, the hungry and those with plenty - we are experiencing the grace and promise of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus’ table is a table of blessing, a common table where the excluded are welcomed and blessed. What we do here this morning, breaking bread, sharing the cup, extends outward to all of the other places we do not want it to happen, where we are told it cannot happen. The grace extended to us by G-d, at this table is a call to extend grace at the tables of our own making - coffee shops and barbershops, playgrounds and lunchrooms.

Every time we hear Jesus’ invitation to his table and we share bread and wine, taking seriously his invitation to all people - the poor and the rich, the meek and the powerful, the hungry and those with plenty - we are experiencing the grace and promise of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus’ table is a table of blessing, a common table where the excluded are welcomed and blessed. What we do here this morning, breaking bread, sharing the cup, extends outward to all of the other places we do not want it to happen, where we are told it cannot happen. The grace extended to us by G-d, at this table is a call to extend grace at the tables of our own making. A place setting has been prepared for you and no expense has been spared by the host. Jesus is the host of this feast and he has invited us to join him those whose we have neglected to invite.

The invitation to grace was part of what made Mister Rogers and the Neighborhood of Make-believe tick. Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister. His calling was to care for children, me and you, in a world that often neglects the intelligence of children in exchange for easy distractions and questions unanswered. Mister Rogers once said, “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”This is grace at its most basic definition, extending love and acceptance to someone exactly as they are, exactly where they are. This is precisely what Jesus did in going to Galilee instead of Jerusalem. Jesus went to a place where the law, the thing that was supposed to guide the liturgy of the community was not always followed. He went to this place and said “Here comes the kingdom of heaven, not because of your ability to follow the liturgy of the community perfectly but because, as you are and where

Assuming our unrighteousness upon himself, Jesus will take our unrighteousness with him to the cross - by the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection, Christ has done for us that which we were and continues to be unable to do for ourselves. We have been made righteous.We are right before God.Our justification began in the Jordan River and was realized on the cross when Jesus died for the empire colluders, thieves, and religious hypocrites. John’s baptism of repentance was about soliciting a pardon for us from God. Jesus baptism and our baptism into his death and resurrection is about the work completed by God. The waters of baptism are not a solicitation, no, we are celebrating that in Christ we have received the pardon we could have only hoped for and have claimed the name beloved child of God.The water we sprinkle or plunge into may look sentimental. After all, on most Sundays, our baptismal font is well-places so family photos catch the sun shining from the east side of the building. But this wat

The birth of Christ was and continues to be Good News for all people.