Ascension Written Sermons

Saved by Grace through Faith Rob Gieselmann, August 9, 2015 The Torah – the first five books of the Bible – adjures you to write God’s words on your heart, to bind them on your hands. Teach God’s instructions to your children, and speak of them at home. Faith, you see, begins at home, with family. In old Jewish tradition the home is the schoolhouse – The word rabbi is actually the conflation of two concepts:   teacher and father. The rabbi is parent, and the parent is rabbi. Teaching begins at home, and the first lesson to learn is: to love to learn . There is an old ritual – when a child is about to start school. The parents will write the Hebrew alphabet on slate, then pour honey over it – they give it to the child, inviting her to lick the honey. The lesson is that learning is sweet. Taste and see that the Lord is good, the psalmist wrote. And when it comes to Scripture and tradition, there is an extraordinary connection between food and soul, eating and love. To ancien...

Dignity: You Feed Them Rob Gieselmann, Pent. 13B, August 2, 2015 The kids were drawing pictures with crayons.   The Sunday School teacher stopped at each child’s desk to admire his or her religious art – a cross, or Moses parting the Red Sea – but when he came to Susie, he was taken aback, unsure of what she was drawing. Susie, what are you drawing? he asked.   Susie answered, Well, I’m drawing God. The teacher protested, But Susie, nobody knows what God looks like?! And without missing a beat, Susie responded, They will in a minute! Well - What does God look like? Moses asked a similar question, facing God in the burning bush: Who shall I tell them sent me? God answered, Tell them this: I am that I am. I am, the verb to be, essence, God is life itself. Just the other day, I passed a guy   wearing a t-shirt, with the simple, un-capitalized words, i am. At first I was scandalized – God’s name, I am, is so sacred you’re not supposed to utter it, much less...

How Can That Be? Rob Gieselmann, Pent. 12B, 2015                        July 26, 2015 Good morning, Perhaps you’ve heard about the mother who wanted to  teach her son what certain symbols and gestures  mean in the Episcopal tradition. The little boy had seen people genuflect, and cross  themselves. He would lean into his mom and ask, What does that mean? And she would patiently explain       everything to him. So when the boy saw the priest go into  the pulpit, remove his watch, and place it in front of himself on the pulpit, the boy leaned into his mom and   asked, Momma, what does that mean? To which she responded, Absolutely Nothing!          Desmond Tutu used to tell a similar story – of a girl, whose father was a priest. Each Sunday he would kneel  in prayer bef...