Yesterday, all morning, I watched the brown oak leaves blowing in the brisk wind.  Like a  well-trained opera singer, the wind hardly paused for breath.  It blew at operatic intensity, its passionate song making even the stubborn oak limbs bow and bend like willows.  […]

Pastor Michael Thomas, October 11, 2009

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31 

With all your blessings, Lord, we pray.
Enrich [our lives, marked with the sign of the cross.]
Preserve and sanctify them now,
  with every gift of love endow.
[But] shame our wanton, selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in […]

Prayer –
 
         It seems that our assigned scripture lessons in September and October often focus on Jesus’ teaching about discipleship.  This isn’t an accident, but reflects the flow of the last quarter of the liturgical year.  The first half of the year, from Advent through the Easter season, […]

“It Shall Not Be So With You” (James 2:1-17)

“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.”
 
         First I want to add my voice to Michael’s earlier announcement about how wonderful […]

Dreams Deferred: A Sermon on Life’s Dreams with Poems of Langston Hughes
 
 
Lovable and loving, loquacious and lucid, lively and laughing Lutherans, thank you for inviting me to join you on your sabbatical which is coming to an end today.
 
My three tasks were these: 1) to […]

The Wisdom of Healing Healthcare
Proverbs, Chapter 9:
1 Wisdom has built her house; 
she has hewn out its seven pillars.
2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city.
4 “Let all who are simple […]

Imitators of God, Live in Love!
A Sacred Conversation about Race
(Ephesians 4:25-5:2; I Kings 19:7)
As much as I love you laughing, loving, loveable, and loquacious Lutherans, I continue to be affectionate to my own denomination the unique, uninhibited, and unabashed United Church of Christ- the church that doesn’t put a period where God means to put […]

Touching Jesus
Mark 6:53-56, Mark 5:25-34
Prayer:     Lord Jesus, we know the Sabbath is holy.
We also know that you will break the Sabbath for the holy purposes of healing and feeding.
Lord, heal us on this Sabbath day and make us whole.
Lord, feed us on this Sabbath day and fill us with your love.
Amen.
Love has a hem […]

God Was My Copilot
(Mark 4:35-41)
I was telling you awhile back about the last time I was on sabbatical with the flock of sheep down in Meriden, New Hampshire. We were trying to figure out how to visit all of the places the pastors were going to on their sabbatical and the only way that I […]

Planting Your Field of Dreams!
Mark 4:30-34    Luke 15:11-32
This morning is about planting seeds- sermon seeds that might grow in you and bloom into God’s kingdom.  Every preacher prays that a sermon might sow some seed which God can grow in the life of the listener, transform your life and bring the joy of God to […]

We’ve returned from the wonderful first leg of our sabbatical (”Paul and the Roman Empire” in Turkey) and a relaxing visit back to Jerusalem to reconnect with friends and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the the Holy Land.  We are now into the second leg (work on converting […]

Dear Laughing, Lovable, Lively, Loving and Loquacious Lutherans!
We are on sabbatical!  Some of us have been there since Day One and others are getting there as the days heading toward August 31 go by.  I wanted to share with you a poem by Wendell Berry entitled “Sabbath.”
The dark around us, come,
Let us meet here together,
Members […]

See Here!

This is Ash Wednesday, the day when we remember that we aren’t going to live forever – and yet we hear the promise of life eternal.
This is Ash Wednesday, the day we carry our mortality on our foreheads, yet eat of the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation.
This is Ash Wednesday, […]

Tying Together 
As we come to a new year at OSLC, we find reason for hope in “the simple tasks that parishioners are already doing on behalf of their neighbors” (Sundays and Seasons, quoted below). 
Quilting has become an evocative symbol of our life together at Our Savior and “Tying Together” will be OSLC’s signature theme this […]

Something Is Going to Happen
by Pastor Michael Thomas

I write this on the eve of Thanksgiving, having just shopped for the meal we will have tomorrow. I am conscious that around the table we will enjoy a plenitude of dishes, with nothing lacking. And, of course, at the same moment all of us are aware […]

Sunday after the election of Barack Obama as President
November 9, 2008, Pent 26A — OSLC — Susan P. Thomas
Matthew 25:1-13
I love this parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids.  Perhaps it’s because it’s about women.  Or perhaps it’s because I can identify with both the foolish ones and the wise ones — I know that […]

Council News: Blessing of Same-Gender Unions
As you are almost certainly aware, the Church Council has been considering for almost a year the question of whether the pastors should be allowed to bless same-gender unions in the context of their pastoral care of members and friends of OSLC.
Using the New England Synod Council’s definition of blessing […]

Praying
Several methods of prayer were shared at the August Women’s Retreat (”Praying Unceasingly”). Here are two that you may find helpful.
The Jesus Prayer
This prayer, also called the Prayer of the Heart, is a short, formulaic prayer often uttered repeatedly. The exact words of the prayer have varied from the simplest possible involving Jesus’ name to […]

To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent and being silent and waiting until God is heard. -Soren Kierkegaard
Prayer is not sending in an order and expecting it to be fulfilled. Prayer is attuning yourself to the life of the world, to love, the force that moves the sun […]

Krister Stendahl (1921-2008), professor emeritus of New Testament and former dean of Harvard Divinity School, Bishop of Stockholm, and parishioner at University Lutheran Church, Cambridge, died on Tuesday.  He is mourned by many.  For students of Bible and theology he enlarged our sense of God, deepened our love for the church (and Judaism) and for […]

“Lent is a season often imagined as a journey, echoing the forty-day journey of Noah and his family in the flood, the forty-year journey of the Israelites in the wilderness, and the forty-day journey of Jesus in the desert.” (Sundays and Seasons, Year A 2008)
These emblematic journeys of Noah, the Israelites and Jesus were hardly […]

(From our January newsletter)
While I was at my father’s 85th birthday celebration in Minnesota the weekend of December 16th, snow came down to cover the Upper Valley. I received piecemeal reports of what was happening here and what wasn’t. Lots of decisions regarding church and the children’s play and everything else; lots of […]

Have you or someone in your life caught affluenza*? “The painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.”
* “Affluenza” doesn’t make this kind of playful sense in Portugese! There it means influenza.
For those concerned about the economic and moral health of our society, […]

Recently Susan and I visited a member of the congregation who does not live nearby. We surprised him and enjoyed a delightful visit. In our conversation he spoke about a sense of “taking more than his fair share of our time.” Fairness is an important concept for all of us, beginning sometime […]