Archive for the ‘Advent and Christmas Sermons’ Category
A series of Christmas Letters, Schedules, and Services, 1990, ‘94, 96, 97. 98, 2000
(The above link takes a while to come in. As per usual, go to the top bar and take it down from 170% to 100%.) There are seven items. The 2000 Christmas Letter from St. John’s in East Oakland, two from 1998, as well as the Order for the Service on Christmas Eve, the Christmas Schedule for 1997, our family letter from 1996, and the Letter from First Lutheran Church on Mountain Boulevard, Oakland, where I was the interim Pastor in 1994.
This letter from St. Paul’s in Coney Island for 1990 was in bad shape.
I hope that I have restored it somewhat.
St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, Sermon of December 27, 1998
This rich sermon is almost a lecture in history. It tells about how the oral tradition developed into the written tradition and how words get into our hearts. It was delivered in St. John’s Ev. Lutheran Church in East Oakland, California, where a wonderful teacher also had just presented the Kwanzaa tradition.
Note that clicking on this .pdf- file makes it appear at 170%. It is easy to go up to the tool bar and make it 125 or 100%. That makes it much more pleasant reading. There is one misspelling, “holey” on page 4 should be “wholly.”
Second Sunday of Christmas, January 3, 1999
This sermon compares the sun-rise with the Son-rise, the birth of Christ. The darkest and longest night is overcome and the days grow longer once more. The darkness of sin and evil is described and the light no darkness can overcome is proclaimed and it has the power to renew our hearts. When I tell about Teilhard de Chardin, I speak about the birth of life and the birth of thought from life. He speaks about the crossing the collective threshold of thought. I think the Internet may be a step in his direction. When I tell of the birth of love from thought, I have taken Teilhard one step further.
Note that clicking on this .pdf- file makes it appear at 170%. It is easy to go up to the tool bar and make it 125 or 100%. That makes it much more pleasant reading.
Heiligabendgottesdienst, Manteca, California, 1997
Peached in German, this is a short four page sermon, preached in United Lutheran Church in Manteca, the valley of California. I believe this was my first time that I preached and did the service there. (I continued until 2005, that was nine times.) The Heimat Choir came with 80 voices. The rural area filled the church. (I’m not used to preaching before so many people!) I played a medley of German carols with my trumpet and had them singing all those songs that Germans love so much. (Have you ever heard Heino singing them?)
Line two should be “auf Deutsch.” Because German is my mother tongue, it makes the story of Christ’s birth so much more intimate (vertraut) for me. This child becomes the Lord of our innermost hearts. Christ is the Son of Righteousness, and sorry Copernicus, our world circles around him [in our heaven of grace, let me add], as we pray, “your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
On page three “Hertzen” should be “Herzen.” And “Das” should be “Dass” right after that. I quote Karl Rahner too: “To eat oneself is fleshly, to share food with others is spiritual.”
Again: clicking on this .pdf- file makes it appear at 170%. It is easy to go up to the tool bar and make it 125 or 100%. That makes it much more pleasant reading.
Christmas Proclamation for 1988
Don’t forget that clicking on these .pdf- files makes them appear at 170%. It is easy to go up to the tool bar and make them 125 or 100%. That makes them much more pleasant reading.
Introduction, Title Page, and Contents
1. Psalm Study, Psalm 114
2. All Saints Sermon for Nov. 6, 1988, “We Feebly Struggle, They in Glory Shine!”
(I’d forgotten how much we suffered in Coney Island!)
3. Sermon for First Advent, 1988, “The End of the World. Plant an Apple Tree!”
4. Sermon for Second Advent, 1988, “The Royal Highway.”
5. Advent Message to St. Paul’s of Coney Island: getting ready for Christmas means getting ready to care!
6. Sermon for the Third Advent, 1988, “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, Rejoice!”
Rereading the Third Advent makes me cry. Our church sat on a dreadful corner surrounded by an empty waste of razed houses on two sides and an empty, rat infested Brighten Laundry building that took in a whole city block behind that. There were some bus companies and the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, its yard and all their trucks, too. But facing the church and the old community for which the church was built was Luna Park, a huge settlement of Mitchell-Lama Housing. Discrimination pushed the old community back into the island and Luna Park was 80% Jewish and 20% Italian and our church was one third Black, a third Puerto Rican, and a third Caucasian. The Italian and Jewish attrition of Luna Park was replaced by Jews fresh from Russia. The old community which had lived around the church was pushed back into the Coney Island and we had to bus them one to three miles to get them to the church. In those days Coney Island was a social disaster area. Improving your life meant leaving the area.
7. Sermon for the Fourth Advent, 1988, “Luther’s View of Mary, the Mother of God.”
8. Christmas Message, 1988, “Let the Morning Stars Sing Together!”
9. Christmas Sermon, 1988, “The Creation of Christ.” God’s movie projector plays the live creation and we live God’s love in Paradise again. In the old Green Hymnal, The Lutheran Book of Worship, it was number 47; in the new maroon hymnal, the Evangelical Lutheran Worship, it is number 287: “Let All Together Praise Our God,” in German, “Lobt Gott Ihr Christen Alle Gleich,” verse six:
Today God unlocks the gates to Paradise once more.
The Cherubim don’t swing their fiery swords like before.
Christ is its entrance, Christ its door!
Let our praises rise, up to the gracious skies,
forevermore.
10. Sermon for New Year’s, 1988 to 1989, “The New Year Begins with Advent and Christmas.” Poinsettias are metaphors for our Holy Nativities.
11. Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord,
(not preached). This first sermon seems to feel sin to be very strong and redemption to be very weak. The second sermon, which was the actually preached one, makes the pivot from lamentation into praise, because God has heard our cry. At the bottom of page 2, “boarders” should be spelled, “borders.”
12. Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord (preached). “The Unquenchable Flame of Love and the Reed Unshaken by the Wind.”
13. Conclusion
St. Stephen’s Day Sermon, December 26, 1993
“Christmas Rose-drops, Roses that Overcome Winter Time.” This sermon presents a medley of themes: martyrs as the seeds of the church, giving one’s life as well as self-giving, as our spiritual worship, how we watched sunflower seeds grow, how reporters have become angels for modern times. Koos Kooster was a fellow I knew from the Hendrik Kraemer House in Berlin and he was killed in El Salvador along with three other reporters taking pictures of the atrocities happening there. Christ-mass is our spiritual worship that provides roses that overcome winter-time.
Family Christmas Letter, 1993
Just a smidgen about each of us fifteen years ago, when we first arrived in California.
