“Our Inheritance Toward Redemption” (Ephesians 1:11-23)Rick Olson, November 4, 2007 In Greco-Roman letters like Ephesians it was common to include a section thanking God for the recipients of the letter. With one glaring exception, Paul included thanksgiving sections in all of the undisputed letters we have from him . . . that glaring exception was [...]
“Israel Comes Home” (Genesis 32:22-31)Rick Olson, October 21, 2007 This is a dark, strange little story . . . it’s always baffled me in it’s quiet way, and worried me too . . . it goes right to the heart of things, right to the heart of our personal relationship with God, and that of [...]
“Ten Lepers Leaping” (Luke 17:11-19)Rick Olson, October 14, 2007 Sorry about the title . . . I couldn’t resist . . . but if I were one of those lepers, I would have been leaping . . . leaping for joy, might even have taken off a few pounds, you never know, because it’s very [...]
“Communal Affairs” (World Communion Sunday) Rick Olson, October 7, 2007 In the film Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, a group of six fatuous, upper-middle-class French women and men try to have dinner. Really . . . that’s the entire plot of the film: they get together to eat over and over in the course of [...]
“The Unbridgeable Gap” (Luke 16:19-31) Rick Olson, September 30, 2007 A cab driver dies and goes to heaven, and when he gets to the Pearly Gates, St. Peter looks him up in the Big Book and says “Get yourself a silk robe and a golden staff, and go on up into Heaven.” A preacher’s next [...]
“Joy in the Presence” (Luke 15:1-10)Rick Olson, September 16, 2007 The first thing we have to establish in this story is who we are, where we stand. Because who we are in this story, from what vantage point we experience the two parables Jesus tells, determines to a large extent what they mean to us, [...]
“Honorable Mention” (Luke 14:1, 7-14)Rick Olson, September 2, 2007 Imagine a first century person, a person from Jesus’ time, reading a story written just last week. And she comes to a part where a big ol’ Southern thunderstorm blows in and it says “Suddenly, the lights went out, and from across the room, George saw [...]
“A Mighty Cloud” (Hebrews 11:29-12:2)Rick Olson, August 19, 2007 Back in the fifties and sixties Groucho Marx hosted a show on radio and then TV called You Bet Your Life, and at the outset the audience was clued into a “secret word” or secret “woid” as Groucho would have it, and a guest would get [...]
“Fear Not” (Luke 12:32-34)Rick Olson, August 12, 2007 One fine afternoon in Oregon, I was sitting in my office looking out the window at the ocean—I mean, I was diligently working on that Sunday’s sermon—and I had it all planned out, I’d done the groundwork earlier in the week, and I thought I could bang [...]
“Welcome the Little Children” (Mark 10:13-16)Rick Olson, August 5, 2007 Suffer the little Children. That’s often the way you hear it, suffer the little children . . . but I don’t much like it, ‘cause it’s got an edge to it, you know? As if it were a burden, as in all right, all right [...]
