The Richest Man In Town

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Mark 10:35-45 and based on the movie It's a Wonderful Life:

Today we conclude our Christmas in July worship series by looking at what many people consider to be the best Christmas move of all time It’s a Wonderful Life.  But, if you may have noticed in all the films we covered up to this point, and this is true about most Christmas stories, none of them are actually about faith or religion or God. But, It’s a Wonderful Life is different, because it does actually involve all of these things as being a part of the story, and it’s also the darkest of all the movies we have seen.

It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by the marvelous Frank Capra, was released in December of 1946, to only tepid reviews and performance. Although it was nominated for five academy awards, it lost money, and the only award it won was a technical one for the creation of a new way to produce snow on a movie set, which was also done during shooting in what was then one of the warmest summers in California history. The release of the movie was pushed up so that it would qualify for the 46 awards cycle, but it was widely trounced by The Best Years of Our Lives, which went on to win nine academy awards. And since everyone if gung-ho to remake films these days rather than coming up with original ideas, The Best Years of Our Lives is probably a film that deserves to be remade in a modern telling about soldiers returning home from war who have a hard time readjusting to society, especially those who were injured physically and mentally. So, if any of you know some big Hollywood producers, you should mention that to them.

I Believe... I Believe... It's Silly But I Believe

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Mark 9:14-24 and based on Miracle on 34th Street:

While the movies we have looked at so far in our Christmas in July series are on their way to becoming beloved Christmas classics, today’s film, Miracle on 34^th Street, has long been there, and is probably only surpassed by just one other film, It’s a Wonderful Life, which we will cover next week. It’s also one of the oldest films we will cover, having come out in 1947, and again is only surpassed by It’s a Wonderful Life, which came out in 1946. Surprisingly, Miracle on 34^th Street did not come out at Christmas, but instead was released in June of that year, and went on to receive five academy award nominations, including best picture, and winning three awards for writing and for best supporting actor for Edmund Gwenn, who plays Kris Kringle and had been a principal actor for the playwright George Bernard Shaw. As most of you are probably aware, the movie takes place in New York City, and begins at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and seeing that in person should be added to your bucket list of things to do, as it’s a lot of fun, and New York at Christmas time is a magic place to be. But, anyways, the main character, Doris Walker, played by Maureen O’Hara, oversees the parade, when it is brought to her attention that the man playing Santa Claus is drunk, but fortunately for her, the man who tells her is Kris Kringle, believes himself to be the real Santa. After quickly firing the drunk Santa, she hires Kris not only to be Santa in the parade, but also in the store, another thing that you should add to your bucket list because you haven’t seen Santa until you’ve seen Santa at the original Macy’s in Herald Square.

Meanwhile, Doris Walker’s daughter, Suzie, played by a young Natalie Wood, is watching the parade in the apartment of their neighbor, Fred Gailey, who is an attorney, which becomes important as the movie progresses. And as they are watching the parade, Fred, and we the audience, begin to learn something important both about Suzie and her …  As we hear in that, Doris’ husband left her after Suzy was born, leaving her embittered and closed off to the world, wanting to be a realist because as she says about Suzy she wants a prince charming to come to her, but when he does, she’ll find out that’s not who he really is, which is, of course, not about Suzy at all, but about Doris. And so, both Fred, in trying to woo Doris, and Kris set out to try and change their outlooks on the world, to help them to again, or for the first time, to experience magic, and majesty and awe, let alone trust and love and kindness. Doris’ wants to keep everything to be about rationality and common sense, and yet, as she finds out, that’s not the way the world works. It also turns out that it’s not the way that Kris Kringle works either. He has told Doris that he is taking her and Suzie on as a test case, because if he can’t convince them that he is real, then he’s lost, he’s through. But it’s not just them that he must win over, to move away from just thinking about rationality, or themselves, it’s also changing the culture of Macy’s, as when Kris starts he’s given a list of toys that the store has overstocked, and so he’s supposed to push to kids who don’t know what they want. But, instead of doing that, he does something radically different…

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Matthew 6:19-21 and based on the movie A Christmas Story:

Today we continue looking at what some of the great films of Christmas can teach us about our faith tackling the ideas that come to us from one of my favorite Christmas moves, A Christmas Story. Now, last week I said that this was one of my favorite movies, and after worship my daughter Abigail said, “how can this be one of your favorite movies if you never watch it.” To which I had to replay, “well it’s one of my favorites, but mommy doesn’t like it at all, and so I don’t get to watch it.” And that’s true even though every year TBS shows this film for twenty-four hours straight, which I don’t think can be said for any other Christmas movie. Now, one thing in Linda’s defense, and that is that she does allow me to watch Hallmark Christmas movies, even way outside of the Christmas season, and for that I am grateful.

A Christmas Story for those poor unfortunate souls who have never seen the film, tells the story of Ralphie who is obsessed with wanting to receive a bb gun for Christmas, but not just any bb gun, but the holy grail of Christmas gifts, a Red Rider Carbine Action 200 shot Range Model with compass in the stock and a thing that tells time. The film takes place in 1940 in Indiana, and is narrated by Ralphie’s much older self, looking back on the events of this particular Christmas. It’s based upon a novel by Jean Sheppard, who actually is the narrator of the film, and Ralphie is played by Peter Billingsley who many of you also know as Messy Marvin from the old Hershey Syrup commercials, which really begins to date us. As an aside, Billingsley is an alum of Phoenix College, as am I, so we have something in common, and he also escaped the curse of childhood actors and is now an Emmy nominated producer and director, including producing the Iron Man films which were directed by Jon Favreau, who directed the movie Elf, which we talked about last week, and so there’s another connection too.

But Ralphie goes to extraordinary lengths to try and convince others to try and get him his red rider gun, but before we delve into that, there is one other key place to start with A Christmas Story. We all like to think that we know a lot, and that can often get us into some tough spots, and so one of the rules of faith and life, is to know when to back down when you in fact don’t know what you’re talking about, take a look… Now that really doesn’t have anything to do with my message for today, but the triple dog dare ya scene is so famous, and so funny, that I just had to include it. So, learn your lesson that before you go spouting off about something for which you don’t know anything about, remember it can get you into a situation you would rather not be in, like with your tongue stuck to a pole.

I Love You. I Love You! I LOVE YOU!

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 15:1-10 and based on the movie Elf:

Today we begin a new worship series entitled Christmas in July, looking at some of the great Christmas films and what they can teach us about faith, and we begin today with the movie Elf. This is the newest film we will see, coming out in 2003, and it has already become a Christmas classic for many people, largely because of the goofy portrayal of buddy the elf, played by Will Ferrell. Now if you haven’t seen the film before, I do want to warn you that it does have some sophomoric humor in it, and just as an aside, why do we call it sophomoric humor? Why not freshman humor or senior humor? And if it’s sophomoric because it’s juvenile, that perhaps kindergartenmoric would be better. But I digress.

Although Buddy is raised as an elf, at the north pole, he actually isn’t an elf. When Santa, played by Ed Asner, comes to the orphanage where he goes after his mother dies, Buddy climbs into Santa’s bag and is taken to the north pole, but they aren’t sure what to do with him, and so papa elf, played by Bob Newhart, adopts him as his own and raises him up to be an elf. Except, Buddy doesn’t belong. Not only does he not fit in because of his size, but more importantly he’s just not good at doing any of the things that elves do, like make toys. Buddy tries he best and he puts his heart into it, but he just can’t seem to find his place amongst the other eleves. And so, Papa Elf decides to tell Buddy the truth that he is not really an elf, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to him, and yet in his naiveté, which is one of his redeeming characteristics, it does. Buddy is then told that his real father lives in “the magical land called New York City,” and that his father never even knew he was born. But even worse is that his father is on the naughty list, and so Buddy sets out and travels through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, then through the sea of swirly-twirly gum drops, and then through the Lincoln Tunnel and he enters New York, the city so nice they named it twice. But if he thought he didn’t belong at the north pole, it’s even worse in New York where his kindness and generosity and joy contrast with the gritty reality of the adults around him, especially his father. But he loves his father, and he wants to redeem him and be in relationship with him, but his father keeps rejecting him, until he is called on to save Buddy and to save Christmas after Santa’ sleigh crashes because of a lack of Christmas spirit. But for our purposes today, I want to explore the three rules of Christmas that the elves have and what they teach us about how to live as disciples of Christ.

Here I Am To Worship

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The texts were Revelation 7:9-17 and John 4:19-26:

There is a Baptist church on Louisiana, and their sign says, “Church like it used to be,” and I’ve always wondered by what they really mean by that.One of the 12 different churches that I attended over the past month was the Greek Orthodox Church here in Albuquerque. As we were listening to what is known as the Divine Liturgy, which, other than now being sung in English, although there was also some Greek, that liturgy has been used nearly every week for the past 1500 years or so. But, I don’t really think that is what that Baptist church is referring to when they talk about the way church the way it used to But, even within the Orthodox church, let alone the western tradition, one of the constants about worship is change. The chair arrangement this morning is one of the oldest ways we know that people gathered for worship. Pews as we think of them didn’t arrive in churches until the 14^th and 15^th centuries. But seeing people across from you is very different, and creates a different worship experience, then everyone facing forward.

In the 12 churches I saw, there were a large range of worship styles and patterns, although some of them were remarkably similar, I think there must be some magazine that gets published that says what to do, especially when it comes to the sound of the band. I don’t know what I was expecting or maybe even hoping to find in other churches, besides just seeing what others were doing. The only thing I was disappointed about was that I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a walk-up song for when I come up to do the sermon, like baseball players do, and if another church was doing it then I could start it here. But, you can all be relieved that no one was doing that, and so I’ll continue to live without walk-up music. The better news is that in seeing what other people are doing, I came away with an even better feeling about the worship services we do every week, especially when compared against the churches immediately around us. But, I also came away with some ways that I think we can make worship better and connect it better to who we are and what we do, and much of that has to do with the very nature of worship itself.