Immanuel Baptist Church
Reformation Sunday
October 29, 2017

A sermon in under three minutes - a thesis on reforming the church

So Martin Luther pro-tested for change in the institutional Catholic Church and the Protestant Church hit its stride. The American Baptist Church is not an institution it's a congregation; likewise, Immanuel is people - all of us.

The symbolism of nailing theses on a door worked for Luther, for us not so much. For us, Pin the Tail on the Donkey is closer - not that I'm calling anyone a donkey - so forget that! Let's go with etching onto our heart and burning into our soul...

To change the church is not to change the other - it is to change ourselves back into Oneness. It's not to be one with the church, but to be the church; be the change you want to see.

We are one God, one world, one community, one church. This is not something different; this is the universal and eternal reality. To not be one church is to not be one community is to not be one world is to not be one God. The only purpose of the church is to enhance and share the experience of universal and eternal reality and that reality originates in and emanates from each one of us. To refuse membership is to deny your creation as one with Creation. It is to refuse to acknowledge the reality of Oneness.

That's what the institutional church of today is. In Matthew 25 Jesus spoke of gathering the nations and separating sheep - and goats; not wolves, not enemies of Oneness, but good people hesitant to surrender to Oneness. The universal and eternal reality is we are one - we're all sheep, and shepherd. Oneness is perfection, incomplete without the imperfections of all of us blended all through it.

In the church of the future the change I see is less goats, more sheep. There is no us or the other, no we or the church. Joining the church is personally and publicly inhaling - inhale the reality of Oneness. Goats are sheep who are afraid of Oneness. Sheep are goats who are afraid, but surrendered to Oneness anyway.

My thesis on reform of the church is, everyone in the church do this - breathe, be the breath of the church, be the church individually and congregationally which is the same for we and all of Creation and God are one, now and forever and ever. Amen.  

Links to Some of My Past Sermons   2021 - 2015
Note: printed sermons are available upon request

Link to Immanuel Baptist Church
Zoom Worship
on Sunday May 16, 2021

The Church is Not Dying
Sermon begins at 3:42 time mark

Link to Immanuel Baptist Church
Zoom Worship
on Sunday March 7, 2021

When I Grow Up I Want To Be a Child
Sermon begins at 3:07 time mark

Link to Immanuel Baptist Church
Epiphany Sunday
Zoom Worship
on Sunday January 3, 2021

Epiphany in Real Time
Sermon begins at 3:50 time mark

Prayer of Invocation

Dear Lord and Parent/Sibling/Child of humanity, forgive our foolish ways of the year just ended. Reclothe us in our rightful hearts, souls and minds, as we continue to evolve as spiritual beings through this time of our spiritual - human experience.

As three magi travelled from the east drawn to illumination, to wisdom to fill the pits and potholes in their knowledge, may we continue our journey from political and religious right to spiritual left; from existence in a conservative box constructed in our minds to the fullness of eternal spiritual life which can only be experienced in our hearts and souls and minds, in that order.

Dear Lord Jesus, since Christmas you are God hidden in plain sight indeed, you are us and we are you, God and human, love and peace evolving through eternity. In this one moment, all of eternity resides, the power of all love and peace exists. Our invocation of you O Lord to come to us is actually an echo of God bidding us to surrender to love and peace which can never be fully known but can always be fully experienced.

O Lord your prayer doesn't say it all but is a prologue, a jumping off point, and to this purpose O Lord we join to say the words you taught us... [ the Lord's Prayer ]

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Immanuel Baptist Church - Rochester, New York

June 7, 2020 - Trinity Sunday Zoom Worship
Preacher of the Day: Rev. Edward Devine
Meditation: The Trinity in Real Time

No video or audio is available for this sermon.  Text follows.

In John 17:5 Jesus makes reference to himself in the time before the world existed, and in John 17:24 there is reference to love and Jesus before the foundation of the world.

The substance of our worship experience today is the triune nature of God, the three-in-one, the Trinity.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Bible tells us Jesus is the walking, talking Word. Jesus was in the beginning. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. This is from John 1:1-3.

Why does it matter that Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit are not three separate beings or concepts?

Perhaps it wouldn't matter if love and peace were only ever above us, beneath us, before us, behind us. But is that enough? Is that all there is? Isn't it imperative to our very being that love and peace be beside us, in all others...and also in us, each of us?

It is this and no less that is and describes the oneness of everything. The sun, moon and stars and all of eternal space and planet earth, and the land and the sea and the soil and the plants and the creepy, crawly things and birds and animals and us...the same cosmic ooze and dust with a somewhat different visual appearance.

Think of M&M candy. Different colored candy shells and exactly the same chocolate center. They look different, but they're the same. And what is color? It's not even a thing. It's light energy bent into different wavelengths. You know what a prism is, right? You shine a white light into a prism and depending how it bends that same white light comes out in all the colors of the rainbow. It's exactly the same light energy, different only in appearance by only one of our five senses. It doesn't sound different, doesn't smell different, doesn't taste different, doesn't feel different...it only looks different - but it is exactly the same.

Think of a caterpillar that crawls up onto a branch and spins itself into a cocoon and sometime later emerges as a butterfly and flies away in a completely different form and still is exactly the same being it was when it crawled along the ground.

Truly, and I'm paraphrasing here, people cried out "God who are you? You say you are love and peace but what's that even mean? What's it look like? How can we know it? How can we be it?" And people are still asking that today.

God was not an M&M candy who created a lollypop or a tootsie roll to give us some idea of who God and we are. Let's say God is one color M&M and Jesus is made manifest as an M&M of a different color - but exactly the same. Different color M&Ms only look slightly different. They're the same shape, same weight, same hard candy shell around the same chocolate. They taste exactly the same.

The difference is the ancients could only experience God with their spiritual sense and we can sense God Jesus with our spiritual sense and all our fully evolved five human senses. God Jesus isn't different, only our sensation sometimes is.

God Jesus created humanity in God Jesus' image; male and female, God Jesus created us. God Jesus exists in real time. You and I exist in real time. God Jesus exists in all of eternity. You and I exist in all of eternity.

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday June 23, 2019

A Butterfly, DNA, Epigenetics and Mary...
Can you relate to Jesus?
Can you relate to Mary?

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday JMarch 17, 2019

Righteous Hunger
Righteousness is the glue that holds eternity together,
and the lubricant that keeps it running smoothly

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday January 16, 2019

Epiphany
Seeing yourself in others

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday November 25, 2018

Christ the King

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday September 16, 2018

Imitating Jesus
The apostle John said Jesus was the walking, talking Word in real time

Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday August 5, 2018

Everyday Living

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday July 8, 2018

Of Jesus, Robins, Church & Radical Changes

A few months ago I was intrigued by a short Internet piece about a baby robin out of its nest and did some research on the topic.

"In early summer while doing yard work I realized robins were active and had a nest in an 8 foot tall emerald green arborvitae tree at a place I pass by often, and one day I was surprised to find a baby robin on the ground. For the next few days and from a distance I watched over the robin family as the fledgling developed. A few weeks later my wife pointed out to me another baby robin on the ground outside our kitchen window and I watched as this fledgling grew and developed too.

Later, I contemplated about a robin's life from my point of view, and how my wife and I approached our discoveries and interacted, and then imagined living a robin's life".

And out of that flowed thoughts and facts and observations and feelings of the past, present and future of church and Jesus and politics and capitalism and the radical changes all around us - and the need for us to be radical in response...

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday April 29, 2018

Big Wheel Keeps on Turning
Sermon on the 5th Sunday of Easter

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday January 7, 2018

Is It Christmas Yet?

When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart...

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Link to Sermon Preached at Immanuel Baptist Church
on Sunday January 7, 2018

Is It Christmas Yet?

When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart...

Reverend Edward John Devine
 

Available for pulpit supply and special events