Discipling Life

This week we had a Service of Lessons and Carols , so I didn't have a sermon. So I decided to dig out an old sermon to share with you. This one was written in 2008 for Horne Memorial UMC in Clayton, NC. I spent time thinking about how Christmas is indeed a Feast Day, not just in a liturgical/theological sense, but also in a larger, secular context. In this country, the observance of some understanding of Christmas is universal, even if it is little more than a day off or a chance for people to share a meal together. The scale of the Christmas story (religious and secular) unfolds much like a Grand Opera. So I decided to prepare a sermon that marks Christmas in this manner. A Christmas Feast A Christmas sermon by Dr. Alan P. Swartz December 24, 2008 Horne Memorial UMC Preludio In the Christian tradition, this is one of the principal feast days of the church – the Nativity of the Lord – commonly called Christmas. What is Christmas like in your home? Families gathering to...

  Not What We Ordered: The Messiah We Didn’t Plan For Sermon by Alan Swartz Third Sunday of Advent, December 14, 2025 Preached at Ebenezer UMC and Black Creek UMC Scripture References: Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146:5-10; Luke 1:46b-55; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction: A Question from Prison Advent is a season of longing, of waiting, of anticipation and desire. But as it calls us to look forward, it is also a season of questions. Today, the gospel gives us one of the most honest and urgent questions in all of Scripture, posed by none other than John the Baptist. Here is the fiery prophet, the fearless preacher who prepared the way for the Lord, now sitting in a prison cell. He is in chains, in a place of darkness, just days away from being executed, and from there he sends a message to Jesus. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:3) This ...

 The Root, the Shoot, and the Promise of Christ By Alan Swartz December 7, 2025, EUMC & BCUMC, Advent 2a  [Today's scripture texts:  Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12 ] It seems that the prophet Isaiah, we hear so much from Isaiah during Advent and during Lent. Indeed, if you were to listen to a recording of Handel’s Messiah, the first part of it focuses on the season of Advent and Christmas and the second part on the seasons of Lent and Easter. And all throughout his great work, that great oratorio, he has music with the setting of the words of the prophet Isaiah. These are the words we are reading and hearing during the season of Advent. Today we hear about one of the most powerful images that Isaiah uses. Even Paul uses it in his reading today. That image is the stump of Jesse. Isaiah talks about the image of a tree stump. You go out into the woods and you see where a tree has fallen over or somebody has cut down a tree and there’s a stum...

  From Darkness to Light: The Power of Hope An Advent Sermon on Romans 13:12-14, Year A, EUMC & BCUMC November 30, 2025 Introduction We gather this morning in the season of Advent, a season marked by waiting, by longing, by hope. The very word “Advent” means “coming”—we await the coming of Christ, both his historical birth in Bethlehem and his promised return in glory. But Advent is also about something happening right now, in this very moment, in our very hearts. Think about the experience of waking up in the morning. You’ve been asleep, lost in dreams, unaware of the world around you. Then the alarm sounds, or light begins to filter through your window, and you face a choice: Will you hit the snooze button and retreat back into the comfortable darkness? Or will you rise, shake off sleep, and step into the light of a new day? This is the choice Paul presents to the church in Rome, and it’s the choice God presents to each of us today. Listen to his urgent words from Roman...

The King We Need, Not The King We Want Sermon by Alan Swartz – November 23, 2025 EUMC & BCUMC – Christ the King Sunday We live in a world that groans with anxiety. We have car loans and mortgages to repay. We scroll through our feeds, watching the relentless cycles of crisis and conflict, and deep within us, a primal desire stirs for someone to step in and simply  fix it . We long for a savior-figure who can silence the chaos, bend history to their will, and restore a sense of order to our frantic lives. It is a profoundly human desire to find a powerful figure who can make everything right, a king who will finally deliver on our hopes for security and control. But on this Christ the King Sunday, we are confronted with a kingdom that operates on a radically different logic. The scriptures present us not with the king we might design in our fear, but with the king we desperately need. Today we will see the profound and challenging difference between the king we often wan...

 Fraudulent to Faithful: Living an Authentic Life  Author: Alan Swartz Date: November 16, 2025, Proper 28c EUMC & BCUMC Texts: Isaiah 65:17-25; Malachi 4:1-2a; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------— Introduction: The Urgency of Change and the Problem of Fraud It has been said that true change only comes when we reach a point of dissatisfaction—a moment when we realize we cannot remain where we are and must move forward. For the church today, that moment of dissatisfaction is upon us. The projections for this year, 2025, are stark: an estimated 15,000 churches in the United States will close their doors. Over the next two decades, somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 could follow. We are facing what one writer has called a “death tsunami,” as the baby boomer generation, which forms the bulk of the church, passes on. We cannot be satisfied with our current st...