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Brad's Sermons |
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| Author: | Brad Miller | Created: | 10/30/2007 2:53 AM |  | | Archive of BCC Sermons by Brad |
| Sunday April 29, 2012 "Building the Easter Community: Confronting the Culture." | |
| By Brad Miller on5/2/2012 9:08 AM | |
| I sometimes struggle with scripture.
Sometimes my struggle is with understanding what I am supposed to learn from the scripture. And sometimes my struggle comes from the fact that I understand all too well what the scripture says.
Let’s deal with the first kind of struggle.
Because our holy scriptures are so varied and of so many different genre – history, poetry, advice, allegory – we have to learn how each differs in it’s purpose and meaning. If it’s history, it might simply be something we need to know in order to understand the progression of God’s presence in the world. But, sometimes history can serve to show us how we should act, too. If it’s poetry, we run into a similar dilemma: does this poetry represent how things were, how things are, or how things should be? And if you get into allegory and morality stories and parables, well, it can quickly become complicated. Am I to read these stories and find my place in the story? I ... |  | |
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| | April 8, 2012 Easter Community Sunrise Service "Roll Away the Stone" Luke 24:1-12 | |
| By Brad Miller on4/10/2012 4:11 PM | |
| This is the day we have been waiting for.
This is the day the Lord has made.
This is the day we rejoice.
This is the day we celebrate the resurrection. The day when the burial tomb was unsealed, the day the entrance was unblocked and God rolled away the stone on death. The day when Jesus conquered death and in so doing offered life to all of the world. The day when each and every one of us was offered a chance to begin again, renewed, whole and at peace with God.
This is the day the Lord has made.
We have arrived at this day and this place along many different roads, and I would hazard a guess that they have not all been easy roads. We have experienced good times and bad; times of despair and joy; loneliness and fulfillment. We are humans, after all.
In our humanness, we somehow lose sight of God’s presence in our lives. Oh, we know in our heart of hearts that God is ... | | |
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| | Sunday April 8, 2012 Sanctuary Service "Practicing Resurrection" John 20: 1-18 | |
| By Brad Miller on4/10/2012 4:07 PM | |
| In the book “Practicing Resurrection”, the writer Nora Gallagher recounts her spiritual journey following the death of her brother. She experienced dark days, not sure what was real, and not sure what to believe, or how to believe. She tells of an innocent question that began the process of her awakening. A friend asked, “What would be the best possible gift you could receive?” Gallagher answered, “I want to believe in the resurrection.”
When I first read this statement, I was somewhat taken aback. But the more I thought about it, the more I understood that my belief in the resurrection is a bedrock of my faith. The promise that through Christ, death has been conquered is one that is pretty hard to grasp, but it is that reality that leads to transformed lives, here and now.
Yes, death has been overcome. Yes, we have been promised a seat at the heavenly banquet. Yes, the price of our sins has been paid. But there is much more to it than that. Because of ... | | |
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| | Sunday March 18, 2012 "Faith" John 3:14-21 | |
| By Brad Miller on3/20/2012 10:12 AM | |
| I bet a lot of people here know part of this passage by heart. Say it with me: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not but perish but have eternal life.”
It’s a good verse to know, isn’t it? It’s one of those verses that we can come back to time and time again, almost as a mantra to remind ourselves how we have been blessed. It is especially important in this season of Lent as we make our way toward the reality of Holy Week, the horror of the cross and the glory of Easter.
Over and over and we talk about Lent as being a time of introspection, meditation, prayer and study. We are called to work on “us” and on our relationship to God.
It’s not just navel gazing, this Lenten journey, it is hard work at understanding just who we are and what we have been given. There comes a time when during this Lenten journey, we must begin to turn our focus away from our individual situation ... | | |
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| | Sunday March 4, 2012 (Second Sunday in Lent) "Remember" Romans 4:13-25 | |
| By Brad Miller on3/6/2012 8:58 AM | |
| “Remember”
It’s a powerful word. It’s a powerful feeling.
Our Hebrew ancestors understood the importance of remembering: The book of Deuteronomy repeats several times, “Remember that you were a slave in Egypt.” Jesus knew how powerful it was to remember… “Do this in remembrance of me,” he said, on the night when he was betrayed. “Remember,” he said, “I will be with you until the end of the age.” The Apostle Paul is forever exhorting people to “remember” when they did not have Christ. And even the thief on the cross, with his dying breath, turned to Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
This is powerful stuff, this remembering. But we knew that already, didn’t we?
What is your earliest memory? What is the first thing you can remember? My father used to tell us that he could remember the day he was born. Born at home in the middle of a snowstorm. No light except the hurricane lam ... | | |
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| | Sunday February 26, 2012 First Sunday in Lent "Repent" Mark 1: 9-15. | |
| By Brad Miller on2/29/2012 12:31 PM | |
| Lent is upon us, and I for one couldn’t be happier. You see, I love Lent, this wonderful time for us to find ways to rid ourselves of those things that hold us back and to embrace elements of our faith tradition that can move us forward into an ever deeper and fulfilling relationship with God as revealed by Jesus Christ. This time when we dedicate ourselves to focus on prayer, contemplation and study in hope of understanding more about who we are and how we can be worthy of the love of God that is represented in Christ Jesus.
While Lent is not scriptural, through the centuries the church has designated 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter as a way to follow Christ’s example and come closer to God. And I for one and glad of it.
The scripture we read this morning is one of the church’s templates for our Lenten journey. It is a succinct and straightforward account of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus.
In 6 verses Mark covers 4 ... | | |
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| | Sunday February 19, 2012 "Connections" Mark 9:2-10 | |
| By Brad Miller on2/22/2012 9:13 AM | |
| So, what is this story about?
It is a miraculous story. But not quite the same as the miracle stories of Jesus. No one is healed. No one is risen from the dead. No one is blessed. The importance of those stories are sometimes easier for us to grasp. It signals to us that Jesus’ claims to be the Son of God are true as he performs miracles as proof of his divinity. But this miracle is different. It this case, Jesus is the object of the miracle, not the miracle performer.
It is a story of jaw dropping surprise. Who could have expected Moses and Elijah to suddenly come on the scene and appear with Jesus? This is made all the more clear by the fact that the three disciples, Peter, James and John, did not know what to say, and when Peter finally did speak, said something that really wasn’t fully thought out. Build them houses on the mountain? Really? And then, add in the voice of God being heard by the three disciples, presumably for the first time. | | |
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| | Sermon February 5, 2012 "I Believe in the Holy Spirit..." John 14:15-17, 25-26 | |
| By Brad Miller on2/9/2012 10:08 AM | |
| “I believe in the Holy Spirit…’
This is the beginning of last part of the apostles creed, and in some way, for me it holds the most power and the most mystery. The Holy Spirit is that part of the Trinity that is probably least understood, and so maybe that is why the 21st century mainline Protestant church doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about it. We understand God to be the creator when we look at the creation that surrounds us. We understand Jesus is our redeemer when we stand in awe of his teaching, his mind numbing death and his miraculous resurrection. But the Holy Spirit, well that’s another story.
We first hear of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 11:1-3…many of you probably remember the prophetic voice of Isaiah declaring “A shoot will grow up from the stump of Jesse; a branch will sprout from his roots. The Lord’s spirit will rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of planning and strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lor ... | | |
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| | Sunday January 22, 2012 "I Believe in God..." Genesis 1:1-31a | |
| By Brad Miller on1/23/2012 11:46 AM | |
| I believe in God.
Not a real shocking statement, is it? After all, I am a Christian minister, and it is kind of assumed, isn’t it? That assumption is a two edged sword, though. While it can be rightly assumed that I believe in God, there is still the question that lingers for many, including many Christians.. That question is “Why do I believe?” And that is a question that believers have wrestled with for centuries.
Over the course of the next three Sundays I want to explore one of the great statements of faith of orthodox Christianity, The Apostles Creed. If you turn to page 359 in your hymnals you will see something called “The Apostolic Affirmation of Faith”, which is the Disciple way of saying, “The Apostles Creed.” By tradition, The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a non-creedal church, which means we have no creed or confession that we hold up as a “test of membership.” For us, acceptance of Jesus as the Christ is our only “test of member ... | | |
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| | Sunday December 25, 2011 "Singing a New Song, Again" Psalm 98 | |
| By Brad Miller on1/4/2012 9:55 AM | |
| What’s your favorite Christmas song?
What is it that makes Christmas songs so special?
Why is it that we sing songs during worship, or any time for that matter?
Songs are a way of telling the story of whatever moment we might be in. There are songs in my life that can take me back to a specific point in time. When I hear those songs, sights, feelings, even smells come back to me. Do you have any like that?
Let me ask you this: if you have any of those, are they songs that bring back good times or bad?
For me, I can’t think of too many songs that point to bad things…most of my “song memory” is solidly in the good. “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” is one of those for me…as are most Beatle songs.
But let’s turn the tables just a little bit: are there events or situations that simply need a song? For me, a bright, sunny day with Carol, is one of those times…years ago, before we wer ... | | |
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