Here’s a link to the worship video of this sermon which is also embedded at the bottom of the post.
Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18
Ephesians 6:10-20
And that building – it isn’t even half as old as our texts.
As some of you know, I spent almost 2 weeks in Scotland earlier this month. I spent some of my time exploring the city of Glasgow, but for most of my trip I was a guest of the Iona Community at the 13th century abbey where they live in community and offer programming for pilgrims, learners, and visitors. Every morning and every evening in the sanctuary of that abbey I found myself in complete awe of the continuity of our faith – of the generations upon generations those stone walls had held, of the songs they had heard song, the prayers that were held in their crevices, the words of scripture that had echoed across their surfaces. It was breathtaking and centering and unifying every time we gathered, to be a part of something so ancient and so contemporary all at the same time.
It’s kind of amazing when you stop to think about it, that these words that we read on a Sunday morning (and hopefully more often than that!) have been read or heard for as long as the they have – a little less than 2,000 years for the text from Ephesians, at leas 2,600 years for the current form of Joshua. And still we turn to them. Still we read them. Still we question them. Still we listen for what God is saying to the church today through them.
That’s the good news about really old Scriptures.
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supremacist rally and counter-demonstrations that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia that weekend. The news and the shock many people were feeling was still so very raw. I promised that while our worship was not changing in light of the events that had been taking place over the last 36 hours or so, we would be revisiting it in the weeks and months to come. We are this morning, and we have to continue to as we move forward.
patiently, he also helped some other children make their way safely to the top. Even after his little boy had reached the high platform he kept helping the others, spotting them so a potential fall wouldn’t be so dangerous, giving a hand to steady them if they got a little wobbly. Another dad came jogging up when he saw his daughter getting some assistance. He thanked the first dad and apologized for not being there, but the first dad simply smiled and shrugged, “Hey, we’re all in this together!” 
The Song of Zechariah found in Luke 1:68-79, are some of the first words the priest uttered upon the birth of his son, John, the cousin of Jesus, the one we know as John the Baptist. Zechariah had been made mute by the angel Gabriel at the start of his wife’s pregnancy because of his fear and disbelief, but when the child was born and Zechariah and Elizabeth named him John as Gabriel had instructed them, his tongue was freed and filled with Holy Spirit John’s father, Zechariah, spoke this prophecy. Listen now for the words he proclaimed.
For Some Reason 