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Sermons of the Rev. Allison T. Bauer, Pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Portsmouth, OH
Episodes
Monday Apr 24, 2017
Monday Apr 24, 2017
Our graduating SSU choir students: Sydney Metz, Jonnie Carpathios, Natalee Swallows --we're going to miss them!!
Sunday worship @ Second Presbyterian Church (Portsmouth, OH)
"Let Your Alleluias Rise" (K. Lee Scott)
Tenor soloist, Jonnie Carpathios
Lift your voices rejoicing, Mary, Christ has risen from the tomb;
On the cross a suffering victim, now as victor He is come.
Whom your years in death were mourning, welcome with your smiles returning.
Let your alleluias rise!
Raise your weary eyelids, Mary, see Him living ever more;
See His countenance how gracious, see the woulds for you He bore.
All the glory of the morning pales before those wounds redeeming.
Let your alleluias rise!
Life is yours forever, Mary, for your light is come once more;
And the strength of death is broken; now your songs of joy outpour.
Ended now the night of sorrow, love has brought the blessed morrow.
Let your alleluias rise!
Monday Apr 03, 2017
Monday Apr 03, 2017
Check out what's going on at Second Presbyterian Church!
Read along with John 11 here. (I summarize the first 38 verses then read from verse 39 to 45, then 45-53 at the end.)
Special note: for those of you listening at home: we borrowed a thurible from our friends at All Saints' Episcopal Church and they burned some frankinsence and myrrh in it for this sermon that particularly appeals to our sense of smell. These Lenten sermons about engaging all the senses are great "live" but I know they lose a little something when you listen to them later on. So maybe as you listen to this, light some sort of scented candle to get a simiarl effect!
Sermon excerpt:
The Bible frequently talks about the pleasing aroma of properly motivated sacrifices and of Jesus as the supreme fragrant offering.[1] And Revelation tells us that, in God’s presence, each of the 24 elders are holding “golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.”
That has to be one of the loveliest images I’ve ever read. “Golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.” I love the idea that God collects our prayers, that he honors them so much that he keeps them in golden bowls, an infinite number of prayers eternally burning as an act of praise and worship.
....
In our next hymn, we will sing the words, “When friend was lost, when love deceived, dear Jesus wept, God was bereaved.” The death of Lazarus broke Jesus' heart.
What other things break Jesus’ heart, do you think?
How many times a day is God bereaved?
Who are the people and where are the places that make Jesus weep today, in our world?
[1] Ibibd.
Monday Mar 20, 2017
Monday Mar 20, 2017
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Read along with John 4:1-42.
Many thanks to Anita Steva for this monologue from the perspective of the Woman at the Well, which I have modified in a few places. Always grateful for colleagues in ministry who are willing to share their creativity with others!
Sermon excerpt:
But even as he was telling me all about myself, things I didn’t particularly want to hear … he didn’t mock me, or even judge me.
He just spoke matter-of-factly.
And my guilt covered me like ashes.
I felt faint and I bent over the well to splash some cold water on my face.
It was as if I could see my life in the dark water beneath.
I saw myself for what I was.
Monday Mar 13, 2017
Monday Mar 13, 2017
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Read along with John 3:1-21.
**EXTRA AMBIANCE: We lit candles and turned off the lights for this one. You should too!
Sermon excerpt:
If there really is a little Nicodemus in all of us gathered here in this church, and I suspect there is, I wonder what would happen if we all stepped out of the darkness and into the light together.
What would happen if we decided, as a community of faith, to step out in public and speak in a place where we have previously been silent because we thought faith was meant to be private?
If we did this, what would we say? To whom would we say it? And where would our feet take us, if they followed our words?
Wednesday Mar 08, 2017
Wednesday Mar 08, 2017
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Read along with Matthew 4:1-11.
Sermon excerpt:
Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French philosopher once rather famously said that in our sinful human condition, we each have a God-shaped hole in our hearts.[1]
And the tempter knows we will go to tremendous lengths to fill up that hole, to gain what we lack, with anything we think of—a new car or the latest gadget; a better house or a better job; a bottle or a needle or another race at the track; a perfect spouse or a perfect life. Adam and Eve concluded in a heartbeat that the hole in their hearts is shaped just like that fruit they weren’t supposed to eat.[2]
We live our lives occupied, obsessed even, with finding something, ANYTHING, to fill the hole in our hearts, to find that which we lack to fill up the emptiness. It’s our greatest human weakness, and the tempter knows exactly how to take advantage of our insecurity.
[1] 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, "What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?
This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself." [Pascal, Pensees #425]
[2] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=902
Tuesday Feb 28, 2017
Tuesday Feb 28, 2017
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Read along with Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 here.
Sermon excerpt:
Right now you’re probably thinking: “Alright, I’m with you so far—God is holy and we are not, but since we’re his people, God calls us to be holy, and we do that by being different from the unbelievers around us. But how on earth do we do THAT?”
Everyone in this room could probably give a different answer to that question. And I’m pretty sure you’d all be right. But I want to send you home with one, simple answer you can practice all week long.
The reading from 1 Corinthians says in verse 19 “for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” Indeed, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1:25). God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, what is weak to shame the strong (1:26).
How should you be different from the un-believers and non-believers around you?
Be a fool.
Tuesday Feb 28, 2017
Tuesday Feb 28, 2017
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Read along with Matthew 17:1-9.
Sermon excerpt:
Today, Jesus says to us, “Here is the world. Beautiful things will happen here”—beautiful things that will make us, like the disciples, want to pitch our tents on the mountaintop and cling to the moments of glory that occasionally shine into our lives. But we can’t stay there. Eventually Jesus and the disciples came down off the mountain and returned to everyday life and entered into the suffering of the people around them.
Jesus says to us, “Here is the world. Terrible things will happen too—humiliation, persecution, crucifixion.”
And we can’t have the one without the other. Joy is sweeter once we have tasted the depths of sorrow. And sorrow is not quite so bitter when we know the sweetness of joy.
Tuesday Feb 21, 2017
Tuesday Feb 21, 2017
Second Pres sings, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty" on Sun, Feb 19.
Sunday Feb 12, 2017
Sunday Feb 12, 2017
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Read along with Deuteronomy 30:15-20 HERE.
Sermon excerpt:
When I first read this passage, I thought, “Geez, Moses, when you put it like that, who WOULDN’T choose life and good and prosperity and blessings?! It’s a no-brainer, right?”
....
Easy peasy. We would choose life every time.
Or would we?
What if we thought of death a little differently? What if, as one writer proposes, we think of death as “a slow process of giving ourselves to what does not matter”?[1]
How many times a day, without even consciously thinking about it, do we give ourselves to what does not matter, to what is temporary, to what is earthly; how many times a day do we give ourselves to unrighteous anger, to petty selfishness, to bickering, to holding a grudge, to the frantic pace of life rushing past us, to greed, to the desire to get ahead or get revenge, to despair or to hopelessness.
[1] FotW, Younger, p. 341.
Wednesday Feb 08, 2017
Wednesday Feb 08, 2017
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Sermon excerpt:
So Jesus commends the people to let their light shine—living in the empire but not as part of the empire. God didn’t create them give in and hide their light but to BE a light, to reflect God’s light into the darkness—not to expose and to judge, but to guide, like a lighthouse whose “lower lights be burning,” shining brightly from the shore in the midst of a storm.
And Jesus commends the people to be salt, to make what is bland come alive; to live out their faith with some extra flavor and zest, and to make others thirsty for the kingdom of heaven.[1]
[1] Feasting on the Word, Cook, pp334-335.