These Illustrations cover Luke 2:41-52
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Sermon Opener - When Our Children Teach Us - Luke 2:41-52
Some years ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article by Dr. Paul Ruskin on the “Stages of Aging.” In the article, Dr. Ruskin described a case study he had presented to his students when teaching a class in medical school. He described the case study patient under his care like this:
“The patient neither speaks nor comprehends the spoken word. Sometimes she babbles incoherently for hours on end. She is disoriented about person, place, and time. She does, however, respond to her name… I have worked with her for the past six months, but she still shows complete disregard for her physical appearance and makes no effort to assist her own care. She must be fed, bathed, and clothed by others.
“Because she has no teeth, her food must be pureed. Her shirt is usually soiled from almost incessant drooling. She does not walk. Her sleep pattern is erratic. Often she wakes in the middle of the night and her screaming awakens others. Most of the time she is friendly and happy, but several times a day she gets quite agitated without apparent cause. Then she wails until someone comes to comfort her.”
After presenting the class with this challenging case, Dr. Ruskin then asked his students if any of them would like to volunteer to take care of this person. No one volunteered. Then Dr. Ruskin said, “I’m surprised that none of you offered to help, because actually she is my favorite patient. I get immense pleasure from taking care of her and I am learning so much from her. She has taught me a depth of gratitude I never knew before. She has taught me the spirit of unwavering trust. And she has taught me the power of unconditional love.” Then Dr. Ruskin said, “Let me show you her picture.” He pulled out the picture and passed it around. It was the photo of his six-month-old baby daughter.
Now, I like that story for several reasons…
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Patterns of Possibility - Luke 2:41-52
A few years ago I revisited the places of my childhood. Sim and I piled the kids into the car and traveled to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where I was born, and then to Erie, Pennsylvania, where I lived from the age of five until the age of twelve. Together the four of us explored what Sim fondly called the Seven Sacred Susie Sightings: the house where I was born, the two elementary schools I attended, the park by the zoo where I flew up from Brownie Scouts to Girl Scouts, and the beach on Lake Erie where I spent hour after lazy hour floating in the warmth of summer. We also visited the two churches, in Erie and LaCrosse, where my father had served as pastor, and where I had lived, happily, for many, many years. I say “lived” purposely — for those two church buildings became, for me, like second homes. Not only did the pews feel as familiar as my living room sofa, the tunnels under the church building, the closet behind the balcony, the classrooms in the Sunday school assembly hall — all these spaces became familiar places to hide in and play in and grow in.
But when Sim and the kids and I first drove up to the red brick church building in scenic downtown Erie, I didn’t recognize the facade. Years ago the First Presbyterian Church had been sold to Gannon College, and the sanctuary had been transformed into a Catholic college chapel — complete with statues of the Virgin Mary and holy water at the main entrances to the sanctuary. At first I was angry and disappointed. But then, when I went in and sat down, it all came flooding back to me — the complete safety and familiarity I have always felt in the church — and I knew that at some level, I had come home.
These experiences which shaped my childhood give me an entree into today’s gospel story that may be different from yours. Jesus’ behavior in this wonderful tale has never particularly bothered me or surprised me. Actually, it makes total sense to me that Jesus would stay behind in the temple, comfortable with the space and the priests and the holiness of the sanctuary….
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Christ in The Temple
There is a famous oil painting called "Christ Teaching in The Temple." The painting gets it wrong. It comes from an era when religious people were still uneasy with the notion that Jesus was like the rest of us. In this picture he is standing in the midst of the elders looking very wise, obviously delivering a lecture. He is talking and pointing and they are listening. He had, no doubt, appeared to instruct them in the law, as if he knew what they didn't. But that's not what the text says. They found him, says Luke, "listening to (the teachers) and asking them questions." He was not the authority; he was the student. He was there to listen and learn. Now it is true that the religious leaders were impressed by how much he knew, and by how he answered their questions. But there is nothing in this text which indicates he was a precocious know it all.
Adapted from When It Is Dark Enough, Charles H. Bayer, CSS Publishing Lima, Ohio.
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Significance of Things Eternal
Parish ministers will tell you that people come to them speaking with regrets like these:
When I was young, my mother was going to read me a story, but she had to wax the bathroom floor and there wasn't time.
When I was young, my grandparents were going to come for Christmas, but they couldn't get someone to feed the dogs and my grandfather did not like the cold weather and besides they didn't have time.
When I was young, my father was going to listen to me read my essay on "What I Want To Be When I Grow Up," but there was Monday Night Football and there wasn't time.
When I was young, my father and I were going to go hiking in the Sierras, but at the last minute he had to fertilize the lawn and there wasn't time.
When I grew up and left home to be married, I was going to sit down with Mom and Dad and tell them I love them and would miss them, but my best man was honking the horn in front of my house so there wasn't time.
Into our hectic world, Jesus comes, and still invites us to exercise the spirit as well as the mind and the body. The best way we exercise the spirit is by giving attention to things of eternal significance, such as listening, loving, and learning from the least expected places.
Richard A. Wing, Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing Company
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Humor: School Is a Part of Life
A young woman named Donna who got good grades in high school was in her first year of college. She had done poorly on one of her courses. In an attempt to prepare her parents she wrote her mother, "If you see an unfamiliar letter on my report card, remember it's just my first initial. Signed, Donna." As the time neared for grades to be sent home, Donna began to worry. Her worst fears were confirmed one evening when her mother called her. Donna said, "Hi, Mom." Her mother replied coldly, "Hello, Frank."
School is part of life. For the Christian there are two kinds of education. There is education at school and on the job. And there is religious education about our faith. We have just celebrated Christmas. Unfortunately, we don't know much about the next few years in Jesus' life. We can imagine he lived in a home filled with love. We can imagine as a boy he worked with his father Joseph in the carpenter shop, learning a trade although Jesus' real vocation would surface in our lesson for today.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Growing Up Fast
Kids grow up awfully fast these days. It seems like one minute you are trying to encourage your child to go faster on his bicycle, to get up enough speed to stay balanced, and the next you are pleading with the same boy now at the wheel of a car, pleading with him to slow down and live. One minute you're urging a shy daughter to say hello to strangers, and the very next, you're trying to discourage her from responding to strangers on the Internet.
Jesus is growing up fast too. Here we are, less than a week from Christmas, from the baby lying in a manger. Now Jesus is already an adolescent wandering off on his own. Last week Jesus was "prophecy miraculously fulfilled." This week he is questioning the teachers of that very tradition.
The classical confessions of the church hold that Jesus is "fully human, fully God," and in today's familiar story from Luke, we can see both sides. Jesus, fully human, is growing up as all mortals must. In the process, Jesus has scared his parents half to death as all teen-agers do. Jesus is asking questions, as should we all, and he is listening to learn, as all we must. And in this story, we see the twelve-year old Jesus fully divine with everyone amazed at his understanding and his answers. We hear Jesus declaring his unique relationship with God the Father as only the Son can do.
Sid Burgess, Question Time
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Small Things to Be Done with Great Love
It took me a long while to hear this truth from Mother Teresa: "There are no big deals anymore, just small things to be done with great love."
Most of this coming year will be spent in ordinary time. We enter into the season on the church calendar marked as "ordinary time." What a good prophetic note for the New Year: most of the good that will be done will be done in ordinary time, when no one is looking and no one will report it to the paper.
Here comes the New Year, full of ordinary time. We will enter it ready to slug it out for the common good while no one is looking. In the middle of ordinary time, God comes with extraordinary moments that make all others bearable, believable, and worthwhile.
I have always thought that while our nation works out negotiations with other countries, like with North Korea, we only see the leaders in the news. But, if the whole story were revealed, we would see nameless people on both sides of the issue tirelessly speaking to each other through the night in order to work out an agreement. Leaders sit down and sign documents that were slugged out by unknowns in the night during ordinary time.
Richard A. Wing, Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing
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Erma's New Year's Resolutions
The late Erma Bombeck made these New Year’s resolutions:
1. I'm going to clean this dump just as soon as the kids grow up.
2. I will go to no doctor whose office plants have died.
3. I'm going to follow my husband's suggestion to put a little excitement into my life by living within our budget.
4. I'm going to apply for a hardship scholarship to Weight Watchers.
5. I will never loan my car to anyone I have given birth to.
6. And just like last year...I am going to remember that my children need love the most when they deserve it the least.
Erma Bombeck, Resolutions for a New Year
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I Like You
In her best-selling book called, Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott, who by the way is a member of a Presbyterian Church, writes about her seven-year-old son, Sam.
“At seven, he is separating from me like mad and has made it clear that I need to give him a bit more room. I'm not even allowed to tell him that I love him these days. He is quite firm on this. "You tell me you love me all the time," he explained recently, "and I don't want you to anymore."
"At all?" I said.
"I just want you to tell me that you like me."
I said I would really try. That night when I was tucking him in, I said, "Good night, honey, I really like you a lot."
There was silence in the dark. Then he said, "I like you too, Mom."”
It's hard to be the parent of a seven-year-old, as Anne Lamott is quick to point out.
Nor is it easy to be the parent of a twelve-year-old, particularly when that twelve-year-old is none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This morning's Scripture from the Gospel of Luke is the only story in the Bible about Jesus' boyhood, and what a wonderful story it is. At one level the story affirms the greatness of Jesus which was even apparent in the years of his holy adolescence. Holy adolescence - now that's an interesting concept, don't you think!
Albert G. Butzer III, The Risk of Growing Up
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The Boy Jesus
Mary was not blinded by her son's adolescent behavior. After scolding the boy Jesus, she is bewildered and amazed that he is sitting listening, learning, and in dialogue with learned religious leaders. Luke says, "She treasured all these things in her heart." While she is upset with her son, she also sees something meaningful in his actions. She is not the only one. You will recall when the old man Simeon held the Christ child in his arms he said, "This child is destined to cause the rising and the falling of many in Israel, and he will be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the hearts of many will be revealed."
There are two well-known pictures, each with the same title, "The Shadow of the Cross." One by Holeman Hunt depicts the interior of a carpenter's shop, with Joseph and the Boy Jesus at work. Mary is also present. The Boy Jesus pauses in his work, and as he stretches his arms the shadow of the cross is cast on the wall.
The other picture is a popular engraving which depicts the boy Jesus running with outstretched arms to his mother, the shadow of the cross being cast on the ground by his form as he runs. Both pictures are fanciful in form, but their underlying message is true. If we read the Gospels just as they stand, it is clear that the death of Jesus Christ was really in view almost from the outset of his earthly appearance. At first sight there seems little in them about his death, but as we look deeper we see more. It was part of the divine purpose and plan for him from the first, and very early we have a hint of the cross.
Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com. Adapted from James W. Cox, The Minister's Manual 1985, New York: Harper, 1984, p. 70.
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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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Put On Some Clothes- Colossians 3:12-17 by Leonard Sweet
Baptismal rituals are very different today than they were in the early church. There is a fourth-century rubric that instructs the bishop to enter the baptistery and give this command in a loud voice: “Take off your clothes.” Whereupon our ancestors were immersed in the water of the font, with the men and women separated.
Did you ever imagine that those words “Take off your clothes” were part of Christian worship?
Everyone knows the Hans Christian Andersen story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” A couple of smooth-talking swindlers convince an egotistical king that he has just purchased the most gorgeous, elaborate, royal suit of clothes ever stitched together by human hands. Only those who are “hopelessly stupid” or “unfit for their position” can’t see the beautiful clothes.
In reality, of course, the weavers have stripped the Emperor naked and he is parading around in his birthday suit. Yet the Emperor is so convinced he is wearing royal robes that none of his servants or secretaries, cohorts or companions will dare tell him the truth. It is not until a little child blurts out the fact, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” that the Emperor sees and grasps his state of undress.
This week’s Colossians text is like that child’s voice. It tells us clearly what naked faith looks like, and describes the garments worn by a genuine community of Christ…
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Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
Scottish philosopher David Hume
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Our Children Can Teach Us
Some years ago in a Midwestern town a little boy was born blind. His mother and father were heartsick, but they struggled with his blindness the best they could. Like all such parents, they prayed and hoped for some miracle. They wanted so much for their son to be able to see. Then one day when the little boy was 5 years old, the community doctor told them that he had heard about a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital who was specializing in a new surgical procedure that might just work for their son… that might just give their little boy his eyesight.
The parents became excited at the prospect, but when they investigated further and discovered the cost of the surgery and the travel and the hospital expense involved, they became deflated because they were not people of means at all. In fact, some would call them poor. But word got out in the community and their church rallied to help them. In a short period of time, the money was raised to send them to Boston for the surgery.
On the morning they were to leave for Boston, the little boy gathered his things together including his tattered little teddy bear. It had an ear chewed off, was missing an eye, and was bursting at the seams. His mother said, “Son, why don’t you leave that old teddy bear at home? He’s about worn out. Maybe we can buy you a new one in Boston or when we get back.” But he said, “No, I need it.”
So off to Boston they went. He held tightly to that teddy bear all the way. The surgeon sensed how important the teddy bear was to the little boy, so he allowed the boy to keep the bear with him throughout all the many examinations prior to surgery. On the morning of the surgery, the hospital staff brought in two surgical gowns – one for the little boy and a smaller version for the teddy bear – and off to the operating room they went… a little blind boy on a stretcher holding on dearly to his beloved teddy bear.
The surgery went well. The doctor felt good about what they were able to accomplish. “I think he will be able to see,” said the surgeon, “but we won’t know for sure until we remove the bandages in a few days.”
Finally the day came for the doctor to remove the bandages. The nurses and interns stood with the parents as the surgeon slowly unwound the gauze from the boy’s eyes. Miracle of miracles! The little boy could see! For the first time in his life… he saw his mother’s face, he saw his dad and his doctor, he saw flowers and candy and balloons and the people who had cared for him. For the first time in his life, he saw his teddy bear. It was a joyous celebration!
When it came time for the boy to leave the hospital, his surgeon came into the room. The doctor had grown so attached to the little boy that he had to busy himself with those insignificant gestures that we… when we are trying to surmount a great wall of emotion. They said their good-byes with tears of joy all around… and then the doctor turned to leave. The little boy called him back.
“Doctor,” the little boy said. “I want you to have this.” He was holding out the teddy bear! The doctor tried to refuse, but the little boy insisted. “Doctor, I don’t have any money. So I want to give you my teddy bear to pay you for helping me so see. I want you to have it. It’s my way of saying, ‘Thanks.’” The doctor took the teddy bear and shook the little boy’s hand and wished him well.
For a long time after that… on the 10th floor of the White Building of Massachusetts General Hospital, there was on display… a teddy bear, bursting at the seams with a chewed-off ear and one eye. And there was a sign under it written in the hand of that surgeon. It read: “This is the highest fee I have ever received for professional services rendered.”
That little boy was so thrilled that he now could see. So, in response, he gave away his most prized possession. There’s a name for that… it’s called thanks-giving. Now of course, that kind of appreciation has to be learned, but when our children learn it and express it so beautifully, it touches us and teaches us… the beauty, the power, the importance, and the necessity of gratitude.
James W. Moore, When Our Children Teach Us, Dec 22, 2003. Thanks to Leonard Sweet, Sweet’s Soul Café, Feb. 1995, p. 6.
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Religion Can Divide
A family lived off the alley behind my first church. There were three floors to their row house, each floor inhabited by a different generation. The grandparents, who were members of the church, lived on the ground floor. Next floor up was their son and daughter-in-law, and the grandchildren’s bedrooms were at the top.
One day, the grandfather beckoned me to the back fence. “I’m worried about my grandson,” he said.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
He said, “When he gets up in the morning, he reads the Bible before he does anything else. Every time he sits at the kitchen table, he insists on saying grace. Now he’s talking about joining a prayer group with his girlfriend.”
“Walter,” I said, “what’s the problem?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Reverend,” he said. “Religion is a good thing, as long as it’s in small doses. I’m worried my grandson is becoming an extremist.” I admit it was hard to sympathize with my neighbor. So far, no member of my family has been lost to such radical behavior. Neither has a child of mine wandered off to the Temple for three days. But it’s important to remember that religious commitments can divide a family.
William G. Carter, Praying for a Whole New World, CSS Publishing Company
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On Turning Ten
The whole idea of it makes me feel
Like I 'm coming down with something,
Something worse than any stomach ache,
Or headaches I get from reading in bad light-
A kind of measles of the spirit,
A mumps of the psyche,
A disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
But that is because you have forgotten
The perfect simplicity of being one
And the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
By drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
Watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
Against the side of my tree house,
And my bicycle never leaned against the garage as it does today,
All the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
As I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say goodbye to my imaginary friends,
Time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
There was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees, I bleed.
Billy Collins (Poet Laureate), from his book "Sailing Alone around the Room."
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A Different View
It is entirely possible, and even more probable, that people see you in several different ways. Some may see you as a patient man while others may see you as hot headed. Only you really know the truth. Why do we tend not to not recognize the nature of other people? Perhaps, most of the time, it is a simple case of forgetting. Mary, Jesus' mother, was upset with her son for leaving the caravan and staying behind in Jerusalem. In a moment of anger she lost her head, and said to him, like any mother, "Wait till your father Joseph hears about this! To which Jesus replies, "Didn't you know I would be in MY Father's house."
One of Bill Cosby's classic routines includes a spoof of the Lone Ranger and Tonto--his American Indian sidekick. They are riding through a Western ravine when suddenly they are ambushed. "Tonto, we're surrounded!" shouts the Lone Ranger. Tonto replies, "What mean WE, white man?"
It is a subtle shift between Mary's "Your father" and Jesus' "My Father." But, when the going gets tough Tonto ain't no white man and when it comes to Jesus' purpose in life, he's no carpenter's son.
Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com
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Christ in the Form of Communion
It was a cold Christmas Eve a few years ago. Will Willimon, Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, was rushing his family to get in the car. They were running late for the communion service. “Where are the sermon notes? Where is the pulpit robe? Don’t forget to turn off the lights. Everybody get in the car and be quiet!”
On the way to the church… rushing through the traffic, their 5-year-old- daughter, Harriet, got sick at her stomach and she up-chucked all over the car. “Great!” Will Willimon thought, “If people only knew what preachers go through.” He wheeled into the church parking lot and jumped out of the car, leaving his wife, Patsy, to clean up the car and get the kids into the church… and he thought, “If people only knew what preachers’ spouses go through.”
His wife, Patsy, led a still unsteady and pale Harriet into the church. They sat on the back pew in the darkness… just in case Harriet got sick again. Their son, William, age seven, ran down to the front of the church to sit with his grandparents. Will Willimon threw on his robe, took a deep breath, and joined the choir for the processional. He made it through the first part of the service… and the sermon. Then came Holy Communion. Will Willimon’s wife, Patsy, came down to the altar to receive the sacrament, but she left 5 year old Harriet on the back pew. Harriet was still so pale and so weak and so sick. But then something beautiful happened. Seven-year-old William got up and came back to the communion rail. “What on earth is he doing?” wondered his parents. “He’s already received communion once. What is he up to?” They watched him race to the back of the church and scoot down the pew toward his sister. He opened his hands… revealing a small piece of bread. “Harriet,” he said, “This is the body of Christ given for you.” Without hesitation, little Harriet picked the bread out of her brother’s hands and plopped it into her mouth and said, “Amen.” And in that moment Holy Communion had never been more holy. Then 7-year-old William patted his 5-year-old sister Harriet on the head. He smiled. She smiled. And then he turned and ran back down to the front of the church to re-join his grandparents. (The Christian Ministry, July-August 1989, p. 47)
Think of that. Her 7-year-old brother William thought to include her. Either because she wasn’t being included or he thought it might help her feel better he reached out to his sister with what really mattered—the body of Christ in the form of communion. There’s a name for that… it’s called LOVE! What a beautiful thing it is when our children rise to the occasion and teach us once again the power of love, the wonder of love, the miracle of love.
James W. Moore, When Our Children Teach Us
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Humor: Getting along with Mom
A cartoon shows two boys walking to school, discussing their parents. One of them says to the other one, "I've figured out a system for getting along with my Mom. She tells me what to do and I do it."
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.sermons.com
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The Martha and Erma Christmas
How many of you drive yourselves crazy every year trying to have a Martha Stewart’s Christmas? You know who you are. And you know as hard as you try you’re never able to achieve it. It always turns out to be an Erma Bombeck Christmas doesn’t it?
I have a letter here that Martha Stewart sent to Erma Bombeck.
Hi Erma,
This perfectly delightful note is being sent on paper I made myself to tell you what I have been up to. Since it snowed last night, I got up early and made a sled with old barn wood and a glue gun. I hand painted it in gold leaf, got out my loom, and made a blanket in peaches and mauves. Then to make the sled complete, I made a white horse to pull it, from DNA molecules that I had just sitting around in my craft room.
By then, it was time to start making the place mats and napkins for my 20 breakfast guests. I'm serving the old standard Stewart twelve-course breakfast, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I didn't have time to make the tables and chairs this morning, so I used the ones I had on hand.
Before I moved the table into the dining room, I decided to add just a touch of the holidays. So I repainted the room in pinks and stenciled gold stars on the ceiling. Then, while the homemade bread was rising, I took antique candle molds and made the dishes (exactly the same shade of pink) to use for breakfast. These were made from Hungarian clay, which you can get at almost any Hungarian craft store.
Well, I must run. I need to finish the buttonholes on the dress I'm wearing for breakfast. I'll get out the sled and drive this note to the post office as soon as the glue dries on the envelope I'll be making. Hope my breakfast guests don't stay too long, I have 40,000 cranberries to string with bay leaves before my speaking engagement at noon.
Love, Martha Stewart
P.S. When I made the ribbon for this typewriter, I used 1/8-inch gold gauze. I soaked the gauze in a mixture of white grapes and blackberries which I grew, picked, and crushed last week just for fun.
Here is Erma Bombeck’s reply:
Dear Martha, I'm writing this on the back of an old shopping list, pay no attention to the coffee and jelly stains. I'm 20 minutes late getting my daughter up for school, packing a lunch with one hand, and holding the phone with the other. I’m on hold with the dog pound, seems old Ruff needs bailing out again. Burnt my arm on the curling iron when I was trying to make those cute curly fries, HOW do they do that? Still can't find the scissors to cut out some snowflakes, tried using an old disposable razor...trashed the tablecloth. Tried that cranberry thing, frozen cranberries mashed up after I defrosted them in the microwave. Oh, and don't use Fruity Pebbles as a substitute in that Rice Krispie snowball recipe, unless you happen to like a disgusting shade that resembles puke! The smoke alarm is going off, talk to ya’ later.
Love, Erma
Who here is not guilty of trying to have a Martha Stewart Christmas? None of us. “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” who of us has ever roasted Chestnuts on an open fire? “Dashing through the snow, on a one horse opensleigh.” I was 27 years old before I understood they were singing “One horse open sleigh.” Up till then I had mumbled those words. We don’t have sleighs in Memphis. Last sleigh I owned I was 10 years old. I remember using it once and it came to a grinding halt every ten feet due to the exposure of asphalt.
So much of what we do during this season, if you read the scriptures with more than a cursory glance, is strikingly foreign to that first Christmas.
Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com
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If Daddy Will Hold Me
A little girl had somehow received a bad cut in the soft flesh of her eyelid. The doctor knew that some stitches were needed, but he also knew that because of the location of the cut, he should not use an anesthetic. He talked with the little girl and he told her what he must do… and asked her if she thought she could stand the touch of the needle without jumping. She thought for a moment, and then said simply, “I think I can if Daddy will hold me while you do it.” So the father took his little girl in his lap, steadied her head against his shoulder, and held her tightly in his arms. The surgeon then quickly did his work… and sewed up the cut in her eye-lid… and the little girl did not flinch. She just held on tight to her Father.
That’s a parable for us in our spiritual lives and a graphic reminder that whatever we have to face, we can hold on tight to our Father… and He will see us through. There’s a word for that… it’s called TRUST or FAITH. It’s surely what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
James W. Moore, When Our Children Teach Us
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Humor: Kids Can Drive You Nuts…
Oh, I know, kids can drive you nuts sometimes. A kindergarten teacher was helping one of her students put his boots on. He asked for help and she could see why. With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn't want to go on. By the time the second boot was on, she had worked up a sweat. She almost whimpered when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet." She looked and, sure enough, they were. It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the right feet. He then announced, "These aren't my boots." She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?" like she wanted to. Once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off. He then said, "They're my brother's boots. My Mom made me wear them." She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. She mustered up the grace to wrestle the boots on his feet again. She said, "Now, where are your mittens?" He said, "I stuffed them in my boots . . ."
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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The Legacy of Determination
A pastor looked over the assembled members for his Thursday afternoon confirmation class. Only one teenager was there for the class that should have been filled with fifteen youths. Only one young girl was there to benefit from the pastor's knowledge and preparation. Only she had prepared her assignment from the week before. The lone member of the class was a thirteen-year-old girl. Her mother had left her job as a waitress in order to pick her daughter up at school and have her at the class on time. Her mother had told the pastor at the beginning of the series of confirmation classes, "I did not have the benefit of a church when I was growing up. I am determined that things will go better for my daughter than they went for me." Her mother was definitely determined.
Determination was her middle name. She would move any mountain in order to ensure that her daughter participated in all church activities. At first the pastor considered canceling the class. After all, only one student was present. But the determination and dedication of the mother and her daughter moved him. He went ahead with the class. After all, the mother's dedication ought to be rewarded with at least this much response from the church. Ten years later, when the pastor returned to that church, a beautiful young woman came up and introduced herself to him. She was a new teacher, specializing in children with learning disabilities. She was also an officer in the church, a leader of the young adults' group. Then the pastor remembered: She was the lone little girl in the confirmation class that Thursday afternoon ten years ago. She was the fruit of her mother's determination that her daughter would receive a blessing from the church.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Can Doing What God Calls Cause Pain?
Can doing what God has called us to do cause pain and agony in parents or other people? If I remember right, Martin Luther's parents were not pleased that he decided to become a priest rather than a lawyer. (One job paid much better than the other -- and they expected him to take care of them in their old age.)
Can doing what God has called us to do cause pain and agony among church members? How many church conflicts are over seeking to do what God is calling us to do (in the present and future) vs. seeking to do what God had called us to do (in the past)?
Can doing what God has called us to do cause pain and agony to one's self? If 12-year-old Jesus was as compassionate as I think he was, I believe that the pain he caused his parents, he also took upon himself. While he may have preferred to stay in the temple, learning from and teaching the elders, he returns to Nazareth (a somewhat pagan, border town) and is obedient to him. What was God's will for Jesus to do at that time? Sometimes the answer is not too clear. Sometimes it is a choice between two good things. It is in situations like this that Luther's advice is handy, "Sin boldly."
I'll give the entire quote for those who might be interested:
"… If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says [2 Peter 3:13], we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells …. Pray boldly -- you too are a mighty sinner." [Martin Luther in a Letter to Philip Melanchthon following the Diet of Worms, Luther's Works, Vol 48, p. 281-282]
Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes
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Growing with Jesus
At midlife, I had the rare privilege to step down from life's proverbial merry-go-round and pursue my questions. Like Mary and Joseph going back to Jerusalem looking for Jesus, I had the opportunity to go back to the place where I had given up the practice of faith in the first place. I went back to my alma mater, back to the religion department of a small, southern liberal arts college.
Over the years, many people had tried to help me make the leap of faith, suggesting first this book and then another. My old religion professor listened patiently to me as I pleaded for help in returning to the faith of my childhood. Then he rose from his chair and began to peel books off of his bookshelf. He sent me home not with just one book but with a box full of books. Books of critical biblical scholarship and books on the spiritual life, books on theology and books of devotion. I was relieved to know that I was not the only one to have questions. Far from it, questions seemed to be the fuel of faith for many. That box full of books introduced me to what Karl Barth describes as the "strange, new world of the Bible." Among those books was a very small classic by J. B. Philips entitled Your God is Too Small. That was one book that I never really got around to reading. The title told me what I needed to know - the God I had been trying so hard to believe in was not God but the figment of a small child's imagination. The Jesus I could not follow was the creation of popular religion and not the Jesus of the New Testament.
Jesus is growing up fast in Luke's Gospel. The irony of faith is that to grow with Jesus we have to slow the story down. To grow with Jesus, our living Lord, we must give one another and we must allow ourselves the time to ask our questions, to seek in order that we might find, to doubt our doubts.
Sid Burgess, Question Time
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Mary’s Faith
In light of the highly unusual circumstances surrounding his conception, the birthing and rearing of Jesus of Nazareth was indeed a profound act of faith. A young woman and various members of her family were asked to demonstrate a remarkable level of faith in themselves, in the future of all humanity, and ultimately, in God when she became pregnant prior to her marriage. In faith, as this mother gazed at her child in the manger, her personal hopes and dreams for her son were tempered by her knowledge that this child would indeed redeem the past and communicate God’s vision for the future. This child’s character would develop in a faithful home. From his parents and other members of his family, this child would learn about his rich family and religious heritage. Eventually, this child would grow and mature to the point that he would ask deep questions, questions that cause religious leaders, and even his mother, to reflection on life and faith in fresh ways.
Timothy W. Brock, Sessions with Luke, chapter 1
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Children: The Importance of Experiments
Stephen Glenn tells a wonderful story about a famous research scientist who had made several very important medical breakthroughs. A newspaper reporter interviewed this scientist and asked why, in his opinion, he was so much more creative than the average person.
This scientist answered that he believed it was because of an experience he had with his mother when he was about two years old. He had been trying to get a bottle of milk out of the refrigerator when he lost his grip on it, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor. It created a veritable sea of milk!
When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture or punishing him, she said, "Robert, what a great and wonderful mess you have made! I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has been done. Would you like to play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?"
Robert thought that was a great idea. After a few minutes, his mother said, "You know, Robert, when you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up. So, how would you like to do that? Would you rather use a sponge, a towel, or a mop?" He chose the sponge, and together they cleaned up the mess. His mother then said, "You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two little hands. Let's go out to the back yard and fill the bottle up with water. Then we'll see if you can figure out a way to carry it without dropping it." The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top with both hands, he could carry it without dropping it. It was a wonderful lesson!
This renowned scientist then remarked that at that moment he knew he didn't need to be afraid of making mistakes. Instead, he learned that mistakes were just opportunities for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about. Even if the experiment doesn't work, we usually learn something valuable from it.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Children: Joyous All the Time
We can learn from our children sometimes. The wife of an Adventist minister was writing about their family life. She said that their family lives in apartments most of the year, because they move from city to city holding evangelistic meetings.
One evening, after a meeting, she and her daughter took all of the dirty clothes out of their temporary apartment home to a Laundromat. They closed the door on a naked apartment: the beds were stripped, the towels were taken down, their clothes supply was exhausted. Everything went in the triple-load washer at the Perky Clean Laundromat. This wife and mother didn't feel very perky at 11:00 p.m., but she knew the job had to be done. Suddenly the washing machine stopped. The attendant called the manager. When he arrived, he said she'd have to come back in the morning. They were sending her home with no sheets to sleep on, no towels to dry on, and no clean clothes to put on! She confesses that she was steamed. Until Beth, her daughter, exclaimed, "Oh, Mom, being a minister's family is so exciting! Isn't this fun!" As her daughter giggled with spontaneous glee, she saw she really meant it. And this exhausted mother began to laugh with her. There wasn't anything else to do. Except, of course, to thank God for her wonderful daughter, who used her influence to bless her Mom at nearly midnight in the Perky Clean Laundromat.
There are some lessons we can learn from our children. That's why on one occasion, when Jesus wanted to make a point to his disciples, he put a little child in the midst of them. Children learn from their parents, but there are lessons parents can learn from their children.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Whose Voice Speaks Louder?
Dr. Stanley Hauerwas is a professor at Duke University. He often begins one of his college courses by reading a letter from a distressed father. The father is upset because his son has run off to join a weird religious group. He is writing to a government official, hoping for some kind of intervention. The religious group holds secret rituals at dawn. The leaders instruct the members to sell all worldly possessions and give away the proceeds. Group members insist on eating meals together, and the father is deeply disturbed about the influence of this group upon his son.
What's the name of this strange cult that snatched away the young man? The Christian church, circa 200 A.D.
Whose voice speaks louder? Your family's voice or God's voice? That is the issue for today, and it is not easily settled. As much as we prepare our children for independence, it is painful when they begin to claim it. As seriously as we nurture our children's faith, it can be unsettling when they begin to take faith seriously.
William G. Carter, Praying for a Whole New World, CSS Publishing Company
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Creation Is Not Finished Yet
Back in the early days of (the 20th) century, Albert Schweitzer shocked all of his academic contemporaries by resigning his professional post to enter medical school with the thought in mind of going to be a missionary in Africa . When asked why he was doing this, he replied, simply, that he had received so much from Western civilization that it was unthinkable he not give back into the stream that had so nourished him. Thus began one of the most influential careers of the twentieth century. As much as our children need a sense of acceptance, they also need this understanding of their reason for being here. According to the Bible, creation is not finished yet. We humans, who were not in on the ultimate beginning of things, have been given the privilege of participating with God in the completion of his great venture, and not to know that and recognize our identities as co-creators with God is to miss an important aspect of our human uniqueness.
Sermons for Sundays in Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany: Building a Victorious Life, Gary L. Carver and Tom M. Garrison, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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Chipmunks Aren’t All Alike
Once upon a time, far, far away there lived an old chipmunk. He was a master gardener, and many chipmunks came to work with him and then went off to start gardens of their own. He believed everyone would want to be a gardener, but, alas neither his daughter nor his son showed the slightest interest.
It would seem impossible to work this out because the more the old chipmunk boosted gardening, the more the little chipmunks resisted. The daughter chipmunk said that one of her friends who had graduated in gardening was now catching beetles for minimum wage and another was digging tunnels for rabbits, which was exactly what he did before he learned gardening. The son chipmunk said nothing at all and just went off to gather wild berries, which he ate or gave away.
Then one day the old chipmunk’s wife gave him some seedlings to plant. The old chipmunk was amused and later irritated because they grew so slowly. Sometimes he would pull on them so that they would get the idea, although he always taught his gardening students not to do that.
One morning his wife called him over to inspect the new plants more closely, and he saw that indeed each was delicately formed and quite lovely except for the bruised places where he had pulled on them. "They are not like I thought they would be," he said to his wife. "I guess they decided to be themselves." His wife answered, "Chipmunks aren’t all alike either," she added. (Abe’s Fable, from The Illuminated Life, by Ab Arkoff)
We have a tendency to hold our children back, to make them in our image, to set expectations for them that are not in sync with who they are. But quickly Jesus' life is being changed. Forged by this identity of who he is--the Son of God not the son of Mary and Joseph. It's hard to let go as a parent.
Adapted by Brett Blair from Dr. Keith Wagner's sermon: "The Gift of Wings"