A View From The Earth

Steeple at St. Sebald Lutheran Church, rural Strawberry Point, Iowa Here is the sermon that I gave at Church of the Saviour in Clermont, Iowa on November 30, 2008. The scripture that formed the basis of this message is Mark 13:24-37 On 13th September 1759, one of the most significant battles of the 18th Century was fought – the Battle of the Heights of Abraham. You haven't heard of it? Well let me tell you a bit about it. The Heights of Abraham are the cliffs above the St. Lawrence river in front of the city of Quebec. Louis, the Marquis de Montcalm - who was in charge of the French defenders of the city of Quebec - felt secure because of the natural protection against a river side attack afforded by the Heights of Abraham. And so he sent only a small detachment of French soldiers to watch the cliffs and repel anyone foolish enough to try and scale the Heights and attack However, the British General Wolfe found a route up the cliffs, that led to the top. When he got to the t...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY OF YOUR 29th BIRTHDAY! Today is my lovely wife, Marcia's anniversary of her 29th birthday. I won't say how many anniversaries it is, that would be inconsiderate. But I can tell you that is more than what I've had. So for those who look at this humble little blog, pop on over to her new blog at http://wdmapowell.blogspot.com/ and say "hi". By the way in the photo above Marcia is being her typical self by multitasking, here she is talking on the phone and preparing to make the bulletin for Church with a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer.

The bell tower at Church of the Saviour, Clermont, Iowa This is a sermon that I gave on November 23, 2008 at Church of the Saviour in Clermont, Iowa. The scripture basis for this is Matthew 25:31-46, Ezekiel 34:11-24, and Ephesians 1:15-23. The following is a brief meditation based on writings by Claudia Burney: "Jesus' family lives next door. He’s got an eight-year-old niece and her three-year-old brother. The Son of Man is the uncle of those starving Ethiopian children. They only gets breakfast and lunch at school, when they make it. His sister is a crack addict. His aunts are illegal immigrants, and the processing plant is closing. Poor King of Kings. Jesus' brother is two houses down and has six children. and his sister-in-law’s pregnant with the seventh. I don’t know if they haven’t figured out what birth control is, or what, but how can his brother feed all those babies on that salary? That means hardworking taxpayers’ money has to go for the Christ’s...

Painting of Jesus at St. Sebald Lutheran Church, rural Strawberry Point, Iowa This is a sermon I gave at Church of the Saviour, Clermont, Iowa on November 9, 2008. The basis for the message is Matthew 25:1-13. Today we heard Joshua say that we should “Serve the Lord” and then we heard Paul telling the Church in Thessaloníki that Jesus will return one day. The Gospel is from Matthew and Jesus combines those two ideas. We have been reading our way through Matthew this year. As Jesus told this parable in chapter 25 he was already well into a lengthy explanation of events surrounding his second coming in chapter 24. Jesus had spoke of his death and resurrection before, but this concerns his second coming. Jesus has said in Matthew 24 that “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” However he has also said that “no-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the ...

St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Maquoketa, Iowa This is the sermon I gave at the Church of the Saviour in Clermont, Iowa on October 26, 2008. The basis for the sermon is 1 Thessalonians 2:1-16. Bill is a 20 year old college Student. He’s been active in church for 5 or 6 years, he got active because of his youth group. He volunteers as a leader of the youth group on Friday nights. His friends call him Blue because he has red hair. Violet is a 77 year old retiree. She’s still energetic enough, in bursts at least, to continue her ministry in the church, by doing lots of pastoral care. Ruby is a little over 29. At least that’s all she says. She’s an IT specialist. She leads a small group and is involved with the outreach ministry in her local church. Jack is a father of 3 teenagers, an accountant, and in his late 40’s. He’s just old enough to be considered a baby-boomer but young enough to think of himself as a Gen-Xer. He’s a leader of the men’s group at his church as well as ...

The capitol dome in Madison, Wisconsin. OK, so I haven't been updating this blog like I thought I would so I will be trying to catch up. This is a sermon that I gave at The Church of the Saviour in Clermont, Iowa on October 12, 2008. The basis for the message is Matthew 22:1-22:14. Jesus says "The Kingdom of God is like a party", and that sounds like good news, especially if you are a lover of parties. Personally, I am not a great lover of parties. Indeed, I generally dread it when I am invited to a party. Questions immediately come to mind: ’who else is going to be there?’, ’do I have to get dressed up?’, ’can I get out of it?’ Now just so you don't think I'm really the world's most boring person, I did enjoy Fiesta Lopez that we had here in August. Parties are meant to be fun of course, but we all know that some parties are just a hard to get through. If you have ever watched “Keeping up Appearances” on public TV or on BBC, you would recognize that Hyac...

This is the sermon that I gave at Church of the Saviour in Clermont, Iowa on September 14, 2008. It was on this weekend that the Church of the Saviour hosted a diocesan wide youth camp out with nearly 50 youth attending. It is we, 'Christians', who know the magnitude of our debt to God. As we stand before the Cross of our Lord and Savior we know how much it has cost God for our redemption. We know that the cost of our redemption cannot be measured in terms of gold or silver, for it has cost a life, the life of the one and only son of God. So this parable from Matthew, addressed to Peter, is addressed to us. It is not a prescription for others to take to make the world a better place - it is fairly and squarely directed at us and all who call themselves 'Christians'. It tells us how readily God forgives us - and by extension all people, for there is no distinction between us if we don't forgive others and others who don't forgive either. The parable tells u...

Rock outcropping near Colorado Springs, Colorado This is the sermon I gave at Church of the Saviour Episcopal Church in Clermont, Iowa on August 31, 2008. Have you noticed? Over recent weeks quite a few of the readings have featured Peter in some shape or form. From walking on water to the recognition of who Christ was and today the rock who Jesus said Peter was became the rock which caused Jesus to stumble. What had Peter said that made Jesus react in the way he did? The answer lies in what Jesus said to Peter following his remarks on how he cannot let Jesus suffer. “You think as men think not as God thinks”. Words don’t come easy and when they do they can often be wrong, misunderstood, misinterpreted or be taken out of context. Peter, understandably, was appalled to think that the Messiah, the Christ must be put to death. We have the benefit of knowing the complete story. We know that this passage of scripture falls between the miracles and was Jesus was teaching. It...

This is the sermon I gave at Church of the Saviour Episcopal Church in Clermont, Iowa on August 24, 2008. The question I asked was: Who is Jesus? In todays readings names have a central role. In the reading from Exodus, the story is about how the descendants of Jacob become the twelve tribes of Israel and how they become enslaved to the Egyptians. One of those descendants is a baby boy who is put in a basket by his mother so he escapes death by the hands of the Egyptians. Well, the little one is found by none other than the daughter of Pharaoh, who will raise him as her child, and she names him Moses because she “drew him out of the water”. The name Moses is very significant because it is a royal Egyptian name, the names of the Pharaohs themselves often have Moses as part of their name because the Pharaohs were considered gods and their power as a god came from the Nile river, from the water. Without the water of the Nile, Egypt would cease to exist. So it is very significant...

In my travels yesterday, I happened to drive by St. James Episcopal Church in Independence, Iowa. I noticed a sign saying that they had a computer center with free internet open from 2-5 every weekday afternoon. I jotted that fact down in my mental notebook and continued on with my day. Well in the afternoon, I was driving back home and was going close to Independence so I decided to swing by and check this computer center out for myself. It is a rather simple affair, five computers in their parish hall and all of them had someone working on it. I spoke with the church member that was monitoring the center and she said that it had been open for a couple of weeks and had been getting more people every day that they were open. The reason that they decided to do this is that they are very close to the city library that is being closed because the library is moving to a new, more spacious building. However, the new building is quite a ways away from the current building and the peopl...