Brewing Theology With Teer Hardy

February 11, 2024 Mark 9:2-9 Peter had a glimpse into the mystery of our faith: that God became fully human so that humanity might become righteous. The Good News, the hope contained in the Transfiguration of Jesus, is not the message to come down the mountain and serve the poor – a message many would affirm without ever knowing Jesus. The Good News is that God became like us, like you and me. The...

January 21, 2024 Mark 1:21-28 The story of Jesus Christ is a story of interruptions. The announcement of his birth by the angel Gabriels interrupts Mary's life and her plans to be married to Joseph. The silence of Christmas night was interrupted when angels announced the birth of the Messiah to shepherds who watched their flocks by night. John the baptizer was interrupted when Jesus stepped into t...

January 14. 2024 John 1:43-51 The calling of the disciples, the calling of anyone by God, to “Come and see,” is about more than saying “yes” so that the Lord can send us out. Philip, Nathaniel, Andrew, and Peter were not called and immediately sent. Their sending will happen three years after their calling. After three years of seeing what Jesus was doing, they would be sent to make more disciples...

January 7, 2024 Baptism of the Lord Mark 1:4-11 Jesus enters the water of the Jordan River, and as his head breaks through the surface of the water, the heavens open up, and a voice calls out, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you, I am well pleased,” and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove. Emmanuel, God with us, entered the same water where many had left their sins behind so they could turn ba...

“The Season of the Great Resumption" Luke 2:22-38 December 31, 2023 - First Sunday After Christmas Simeon and Anna were both filled with expectations. For both, their expectations rested not in the cycle of the Temple but rather in the promise made by God to Israel – to raise up the messiah through the line of David. So, Simeon and Anna waited. Anna waited in the Temple for the coming of the Lord....

Christmas Eve Luke 2:1-14 We want joy in our lives. When the world jerks us around, we look for ways to push back and fight back. That’s our story. But (and it’s a big but so you know it does not lie) the story that drew you in tonight is not a story of our initiative against the world's problems. We might find temporary relief in our story, but it rarely leads to the joy we feel tonight, the joy...

December 24, 2023 - Advent 4 Luke 1:26-38 At a particular time and place, in a manner and through people that supersedes what we think to be the normal course of historical human events, God acted, begetting a Son who comes as the fulfillment of God’s promise for the salvation of humanity. Was the angel Gabriel lost? At each intersection between Heaven and Nazareth did Gabriel ask, “Where do I wan...

December 10, 2023 | Mark 1:1-8 Like the Professor in All the Light We Cannot See , John the Baptist is broadcasting gospel good news in the middle of the night. We all want hope which is why we left our Christmas decorations up well into the new year during Christmas of 2020 when the darkness of death and despair was a kind of cloud around us. We all want hope which is why we put our Christmas dec...

December 3, 2023 Mark 13: 24-37 We have the time to wait. Waiting is one of the ways the Church Universal remains faithful to Christ. The work of the Church is to show and tell that Jesus Christ indeed has come and will come again. We shout that God is not done with us. The Church – yesterday, today, and tomorrow – has been commissioned to bear the light of the Light of the world. So then, the lif...

November 26, 2023 Matthew 25:31-46 | Christ the King Sunday The truth we cannot handle is that this final parable is not about the list of do-gooder achievements each of us counts. Before any of our good, bad, or indifferent works, God has been preparing a place for you for every last one of us. The sheep were invited to a place that was prepared for them, prepared for you. The place of punishment...

November 19, 2023 Matthew 25:14-30 Whether we imagine God as a baby wearing golden fleece diapers, in a tuxedo t-shirt, as a sandal-wearing hippie, a tough and harsh dictator, or full of wrath and seeking revenge, that is the God we get. If we expect God to return, righting creation, making everything new as an eight-pound six-ounce baby, then we are missing the story and thus will miss Christ’s r...

November 5, 2023 Matthew 5:1-12 Jesus is the personification of the Beatitudes. The rich who became poor. He mourned over our Sin and rejection. He is the one who truly thirsts and hungers for righteousness so that we would be reconciled with God. He is the only person who is merciful to his enemies, the peacemaker willing to lay down his life for the sake of all Creation. Jesus is not offering hi...

October 22, 2023 Matthew 22:15-22 Jesus knew their hypocrisy. Jesus knows our hypocrisy. The Pharisees and Herodians reached into their pockets, but Jesus did not. The idolatrous coin that condemns was not in Jesus’s pocket. Christ’s pocket was empty because, alone, he is fully faithful to the prayer he taught us, the prayer we will pray in just a few minutes. In taking our sin into His hand, you...

October 15, 2023 Matthew 22:1-14 The Kingdom of Heaven is like a king giving his son a wedding banquet. The Kingdom of Heaven is like God, who throws a party for the Son. We, the baptized, Christ’s body, Christ’s bride, the church are not mentioned by name in this parable. We are so convinced that we need to work out our salvation that we turn grace into law and place ourselves in the parable when...

October 8, 2023 Matthew 21:33-46 None of us can keep this church going. I cannot do it, nor can you. Walker Chapel, like every other church, is God’s. This is God’s church and God’s service. We are God’s people. This is where financial stewardship becomes important, as we are not only a part of the mission of Walker Chapel. What we do here in worship, discipleship, and mission is part of God’s lar...

October 1, 2023 Matthew 21:23-32 Jesus, it turns out, is a third kind of son, the one who both agrees to and does the will of the Father. In John’s gospel that last-yet-first son tells us exactly what the will of the Father is, that we believe in him. The King and the Kingdom are one and the same; but also, we are the Body of that King and so we are deputized to make promises with the authority of...

September 17, 2023 Matthew 18:21-35 This is a parable about the Kingdom of God, and it is a parable about us. We are the unmerciful servant, wanting pity and mercy for ourselves while we will not, we cannot extend the same to others. So what’s to be done with us?  Forgiveness – for us and others – is not easy. At times we do not want to forgive and at others, we want more than anything to be forgi...

August 27, 2023 Romans 12:1-8 If we miss or do not understand what Paul’s “therefore” is there for, we can turn the task of transformation from gospel good news into another burdensome task. Without Paul’s “therefore,” without the previous 11 chapters of Paul detailing what the grace of God is and that we are the recipients of this grand gift, to live a transformed life as described by Paul is bur...

A few years ago, my friend Tony came to the church I was working to be our “Scholar in Residence.” While Tony was in town, he taught a few seminars and preached on Sunday morning. He traveled with his wife and children. When Tony did not have responsibilities at the church, he took his family sightseeing. They visited all the sites we who live close to the DC avoid during the summer months. The Wa...

August 6, 2023 Romans 9:1-5 There are people we want to “save.” We wish they would heed the Good News, the same old song we proclaim week after week. “If only we could convince them of the truth we cling to,” we think, “then they will be OK.” But (and it is a big but so you know it does not lie), we remember that the story of blessing, redemption, and salvation is not ours to fulfill. God is at wo...

July 30, 2023 Romans 8:26-29 While we may have a thing or two to teach Saint Paul about separation, Paul reminds the Church that when we feel alone or abandoned, the grace of God is ours. Whether we know it or not, God's grace is preveniently ours, meaning God's grace goes before us. Our best selves do not prevent a separation. There is no number of good deeds that can be done to make the grace of...

July 23, 2023 Romans 8:12-25 Grace is not about finishing. It is about beginning. Grace is not about excuses. It is about newness. Grace is not about what we do. It is about what God is doing and has done. Grace produces hope because God is at work. Our hope is in the faithful work of God. The hope of God is bringing about a new thing by restoring all of creation. By God’s grace, our hope does not...

July 16, 2023 Romans 8:1-11 If it were up to me, I would cast pastors like Driscoll as the Nazi in the next Indiana Jones flick. It is preachers of false gospels like  Driscoll whose face I would like God to melt. But as soon as I have done that, as soon as I have painted him the guilty one, I have fallen under that same condemning judgment. The scandal of Grace is that there is, therefore, now NO...

July 9, 2023 Romans 7:15-25 The key to our salvation, the thing that makes us right before God is not ignoring our Sin – out of sight, out of mind – or ignoring our need for a divine intervention. The key to our salvation is that in spite of our inability to follow God’s top-ten, which Jesus distilled into two things – love God and love one another – God's grace is ours. God’s grace frees us from...

July 2, 2023 Hebrews 12:12-15 As recipients of God’s amazing Grace and as bearers of that Grace, we can expect that God will not leave us as we are or have been. God loves you just as you are, but God’s love is such that God will not leave you just as you are. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, she was sent back to her village with worth and value she did not have before encountering...