A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — February 28, 2010
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Psalm 27;  Luke 13:31-35

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as
a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” — Luke 13:34

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
…let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! — Psalm 27:1, 14

I was eating lunch in the McDonald’s on High Street this past week when I chanced to overhear someone talking about the ancient kings of Israel and Judah.  Not your usual conversation topic in McDonald’s.  But then I do occasionally see various older gentlemen in McDonald’s or Wendy’s in earnest conversation with a student or two over an open Bible.  Whether it’s Xenos or Campus Crusade or one of the other para-church ministries, I don’t know.  In any event, this one gentleman was going on about good kings and bad kings in Israel and Judah.

In the book of II Kings, each new king is introduced with a summary judgment of his reign—either “he did what was right in the sight of the Lord” or “he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  Then the book relates how good things happened to the good kings and evil things to the evil kings.  The point, according to the gentleman, was how God kept close watch over what each king did, responding appropriately with reward or punishment—long or short reigns, good or poor harvests, that sort of thing.  Just so, God keeps a watchful eye on all we do, looking especially for sinful thoughts and actions.  So we better watch out.

 

A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — February 21, 2010
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Text:  Psalm 1:1-6;  Deuteronomy 30:6, 11-20a

The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live. — Deuteronomy 30:6

I have set before you life and death… choose life…  — Deuteronomy 30:19

When I was growing up, I didn’t know much about Lent.  Mostly it looked like Lent was about giving things up, and I thought it was a bummer.  Catholic friends would give up candy for Lent… or ice cream.  Adults talked about giving up smoking.  Sometimes they even tried.  Most people seemed to begrudge their sacrifice unless, of course, they gave up something they didn’t like anyway.  It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  I used to say I was giving up Lent for Lent.  Now, according to a Dispatch article on Friday, kids are giving up Facebook (although it seems some will fall back on unlimited text messaging).

A lot that I read about Lent emphasizes feeling sorry for what we’ve done wrong and making sacrifices.  “Lent is all about sacrifice,” said one teen in the Dispatch article.  Scripture commentaries for Lent are filled with words like sin and guilt, temptation, transgressions, and trespasses, along with repentance—repentance, in the sense of feeling sorry for misdeeds and promising never to do them again.  Now these are certainly valid concerns with respect to our spiritual journey through life.  But they can be over-emphasized during the Lenten season.

 

Readings for Jazz Worship — February 14, 2010

Rev. Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson

Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, OH

 

I'm not going to preach as such  this morning.  (Let the people say, "Amen.") What I am going to do this morning is read several scripture passages along with a few poems and a story.  Consider these like jazz riffs on biblical themes—beginning with God as creator of heaven and earth and how we are to be both stewards and sharers of creation.

Psalm 24:1 —     The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
    the world, and those who live in it;

Psalm 115:15-16 —    May you be blessed by the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.
    The heavens are the Lord’s heavens,
    but the earth [the Lord] has given to human beings.

If the earth is given to bless all human beings, why then are there such vast differences in blessing between rich and poor?  There’s a Haitian proverb that says, “God gives us everything we need to flourish, but [God’s] not the one who’s supposed to divvy up the loot.  That charge is laid upon us.”  It’s our responsibility.  So here are some suggestions from Proberbs 22 and 31.

A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — January 31, 2010
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts: Psalm 147:1-11  ; Luke 4:14-30

The Lord lifts up the downtrodden… — Psalm 147:6a

When [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been

the prophet Isaiah was given to him. — Luke 4:16-17a

This (hold up Bible) is not the word of God.  How strange… you might think.  I’m sure you’ve heard it called the word of God.  But it’s not…at least not all by itself.  By itself, it’s a book, a thing, an inanimate object fashioned by human hands.  Like all books, it’s filled with words—page upon page of words.  But even those words are not themselves the word of God.

If you listen carefully you may have noticed that when I open and read from the Bible in worship, I often say something like, “Listen for the word of God,” not “Listen to the word of God.”  That’s because it takes something more for the static words on the printed page, the words I read aloud, to become the word of God for us.  After all, many are the times when we all read or hear the words of the Bible and little or nothing happens.  We remain unmoved, and nothing changes.