Luke 11:1-4; Luke 12:22-34

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We live in a modern democracy that enshrines the words: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Didn’t the nation’s founders throw off a king in order to gain this independence? And yet, week after week, we pray that God’s kingdom would be revealed and that God’s will would be done, both in heaven and on earth. How do we reconcile our prayers with our politics? I suppose we reconcile these two very different perspectives, by spiritualizing the kingdom of God. We live in a democracy here on earth – where we get to run our own lives – and when we get to heaven, well, then God gets to be in charge!

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Isaiah 6:1-8

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The liturgical calendar may say that today is Transfiguration Sunday, and the social calendar might say that it’s Valentine’s Day, but I have another calendar that says that it’s Evolution Sunday. As you can see from the service, I decided to go with the latter calendar! For the fifth consecutive year churches and synagogues from across the country will be focusing on the relationship between science and our confessions of faith. Evolution Sunday and Weekend is observed on the weekend nearest Charles Darwin’s Birthday. We don’t do this because Darwin was a saint, or because he had special spiritual knowledge that we need to pass on. But, Darwin is important to our conversation, because he personifies the ongoing debate that has rocked our churches and society for decades if not centuries. Although the debate started long before Darwin – just ask Galileo -- the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species changed the conversation between science and theology forever.

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1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Those of you who’ve been part of the God is Green study know that we’ve been talking about the ways our lives impact the environment. Although God may have given us a beautiful world to live in and the job of being good stewards of this gift, too often we’ve muddied the waters and trampled down the pastures (Ezk: 34:18). As we’ve been talking about our impact on the environment, a troubling question has emerged: “How much is enough?” That is, if our pursuit of bigger and better has a negative impact on the environment, what am I willing to live without? What would I be willing to sacrifice? That’s one way to ask the question of priorities, but we could ask it in other ways. For instance, since we seem to be in an ongoing economic crisis, one that grips our nation, our state, and our local communities, including the city of Troy, we might ask the question: what services do we consider important and essential?

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