And you (Peter), when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. -- Luke 22:32b Jonathan Meigs sought to win the hand of the girl he loved. Her father, a stern Quaker, coldly rejected Jonathan. Beneath expectations. Entirely unsuitable. Told he was unworthy, Jonathan mounted his horse and left. Heart shattered. Not far away, he heard his love's voice. "Return! Jonathan! Return!" Jonathan never forgot that day, the day the simple word "return" overcame an awful sense of rejection. So sweet was the ...
How much would you pay for some spot-on financial advice from billionaire investor Warren Buffett? They call him the Oracle of Omaha. He is a legend when it comes to making wise decisions in the financial world. Some people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for his wisdom about the stock market. And yet when some reporters asked Buffett for the best advice he ever received, Buffett didn’t talk about money at all. Rather he focused on how best to live . . . and how to raise your children. Buffett said ...
Solomon Grundy, Born on Monday, Christened on Tuesday, Married on Wednesday, Took ill on Thursday, Worse on Friday, Died on Saturday, Buried on Sunday. This is the end of Solomon Grundy. It is an old nursery rhyme that some of you may recall. Now, I'm not suggesting that we use it to replace the gospel text for today, but I did begin with it because it picks up one of the central themes of our text: the shortness of life on this earth. Jesus said to his disciples: "I am with you only a little longer." In ...
A woman had two little boys who were driving her to the edge of despair. They were into everything, non-stop. And they were mischievous as well. One day she decided to take them to her pastor. Maybe he could succeed where she had failed. The pastor wanted to see the older boy first. The younger one sat outside. The older boy was frightened. The minister looked so austere in his black robe each Sunday. What would he be like one-on-one? The minster, a kindly man, looked at the young fellow somberly, then ...
It was an incredible military breakthrough. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Commander Joe Rochefort broke the Japanese codes. From an intelligence base on Oahu, he predicted an attack on Midway Island for June 3, 1942. Because of Rochefort's skill, the United States surprised the Japanese Navy with its first defeat in 350 years. Four carriers were lost, one cruiser, 2500 men, 322 aircraft, and the best of their pilots. The tide turned in the Pacific; Japan never recovered momentum. Commander ...
It is the mother of all family feuds. It is known as "The Hatfields and the McCoys." It started in 1878; it ended in 1890. It was a twelve- year war between two neighbors that killed three Hatfields, seven McCoys, and two outsiders. What was the feud over—a hog! Bitterness over one hog stole twelve years and twelve lives. I'm going to talk to you today about a subject that I believe probably afflicts everyone at some time in their life, and it is the subject of bitterness. Many people who are hearing this ...
Luke 12:13-21, Luke 12:22-34, Luke 12:35-48, Luke 12:49-53, Luke 12:54-59
Sermon
Lori Wagner
Prop: red scarves or pieces of red material to pass out during the altar call Some stories just tug at our hearts and warm our toes. Stories about animals seem to do that a bit more than not. In a particular story written in 1859 by Elizabeth Gaskell, two brothers venture out together along with their loyal and beautiful collie dog. Soon, they are lost as a vicious snowstorm whips up around them. Cold and dying, they struggle to survive. Knowing all is lost and desperate to save his younger brother, the ...
Matthew 21:1-11, Philippians 2:1-11, Isaiah 50:1-11
Bulletin Aid
First Lesson: Isaiah 50:4-9a Theme: The suffering Savior Call to Worship Pastor: Lift up your hearts in praise to Jesus, King of our lives! People: We praise Jesus, Son of God, Savior of the world, King of our lives! Pastor: Jesus ascended his throne by way of the cross. And now he has authority over sin itself. People: Jesus is King because he has conquered sin, and rules in our hearts. Praise his name! Collect Almighty God, whose Son endured the shame of the cross to give us the crown of life: Let the ...
Of our five physical senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch - which do you think is predominant? Some years ago a test was given in an English school to determine this for a class of boys. They were sent into a special room for two minutes. When they came out they were told to make a list of everything they had noticed there. Some listed as many as forty objects, some could list only ten. The significant part of the experiment was that the boys listed only those things they had seen. Noises from ...
The book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom, a collection of pithy expressions of practical advise. As I am contending in the theme for this sermon series, it is a compendium of guidance for daily living. Because it is a book of wisdom, it shouldn't surprise us that a lot is said about fools and foolishness. The word fool as singular or plural appears at least fifty five times in the book, and foolish or foolishness at least twenty one times. In this 26th chapter from which we have read our text, fool and ...
If there were one word everyone could agree on to describe twenty-first century living, it would surely be stressful. Anyone here this morning want to deny that we face a host of stress-inducing factors in this world? How about terrorism. How about war? How about avian flu? How about global warming, or diminishing resources, vanishing species, increasing Population, or WMD's? Not to mention the Islamic Republic of Iran with a head of state who's on record wanting to nuke Israel out of existence? And that's ...
We have been blessed at our church to have had student interns in ministry for many years from Columbia Theological Seminary, Johnson C. Smith Seminary, and Candler School of Theology. They have been all varieties of cultures, genders, ages, outlooks, and approaches. As a multicultural church, we like to think that we have broadened their view of themselves and of ministry. I know that they have greatly enriched our lives. We ask our interns to lead all parts of worship over the course of their time with ...
A couple in Sweetwater Texas had a lot of potted plants, and while watching TV the weatherman predicted a cold front coming through. The husband suggests that they bring in the potted plants. The wife goes outside to bring them indoors to protect them from freezing. It turned out that a little garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants and after it got warm, it crawled out on the floor. The wife saw it just as it went under the couch and she begins screaming hysterically. Her husband who had gotten ...
What do you do when you need a little extra motivation? When your strength or your spirits are depleted, and you’re facing a big challenge—how do you kick up your energy a notch? In June of 2000, a couple of video board operators for the Los Angeles Angels baseball team decided that their team needed some extra motivation. They were playing the San Francisco Giants and they were behind. So the guys on the video board threw up a video clip on the stadium’s giant video screen—a video clip from the movie “Ace ...
A lot of people don't believe it -- but there's a new kingdom coming. Often, like a phoenix bird, it arises out of the ashes of the old. As a young sapling is germinated by forest fire, so the new kingdom is sprouted in the desolation of despair. Like tundra flowers and crab grass the new kingdom has irresistible life impulses and grows anywhere. There is a new kingdom coming. You may wonder where it is -- this new kingdom. You may look for advance press releases, television bulletins, screaming headlines ...
I grew up with the myth, universally absorbed but rarely argued for except by extremists with bad manners, that whites were superior. Exceptions were acknowledged, but only as exceptions that did not change the rule. Racism was one of the unspoken beliefs of my childhood culture before the Civil Rights movement rose up to challenge the great lie with the potent rhetoric of our founding documents, as in The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal ...
William Sloane Coffin, Jr., was, for several years, the pastor at Riverside Church in New York City. In his autobiography, he told of going back to France and visiting some of the places where he had been in World War II. One of those places was the town of Sainte-Mère-Eglise. The 82nd Airborn Division had dropped into that town. While there for his visit, the mayor showed William around. They went inside the village church. The mayor pointed to a beautiful stained-glass window that depicted the 82nd ...
Which stranded motorist would be helped the soonest: a pregnant woman, a little old lady, a messy hippie, a smartly dressed career woman, or a scantily dressed sex symbol? A Florida Space Coast newspaper decided to find out, and ran a test on U. S. Route One with a twenty-two year old actress, Sally Mullins, who played the distressed driver in five different roles: Career woman: standing by the side of her broken down Pontiac, dressed in a double-breasted suit, holding up a "stop and please help sign" - ...
A man came home from a long day of work; he was totally exhausted. He entered into his son’s bedroom to tell him goodnight, and he was greatly irritated when his little boy began to badger him about money. The little boy said, “Daddy, how much money do you make?” The father grunted, “Enough!” Well, the boy pressed further and said, “I mean how much do you make an hour?” The man was not in the mood for any games, so he gave the boy a quick lecture and said, “They pay me $25 per hour.” The boy then said, “ ...
Put together one very run-down house, a needy family who deserves a better place to live, several opinionated designers, one week and what do you get? The answer is - Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It is not only a fascinating show to watch, but it will touch even the hardest of hearts. Each episode features a race against time on a project that would ordinarily take somewhere between 3-4 months to achieve. A team of designers, contractors, and several hundred workers have just 7 days to totally rebuild ...
One of my favorite writers is Loren Eiseley. He is an anthropologist and naturalist who can blend scientific knowledge and imaginative vision, and record his findings with the perception of a painter, the words of a poet, and the heart of a prophet. I share one of his stories in his own words, because the way he puts words together is powerful and inspiring. “The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling’s parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. (A raven had raided ...
We move now to talk about discipline and means of grace. In my definition of Spiritual Form I chose words very carefully – Listen again: “and appropriating by commitment, discipline and action.” Our discipline is armed at cultivating an awareness of the indwelling Christ. Paul’s words to the Romans make it clear. Listen to Paul in Rom. 12:1-2: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your ...
My parents were married in the wave of weddings that followed World War II. Dad came home from military operations in Europe to start a new life on the farm, and Mom became his partner in the enterprise. There was only one problem — Dad had an older brother who was destined to take over the family agricultural enterprise, and there was not enough work or income to support two families. So Dad began to look for other opportunities. For a while he drove a cattle truck, bringing fattened animals to the sales ...
Salmon do it. Hummingbirds do it. Butterflies do it. Turtles do it. All these creatures, and many more: they all . . . go home again. Salmon find their way from the vast ocean back to whatever tiny tributary in which they were hatched. Hummingbirds fly over 6000 miles to find their nesting sites. Butterflies congregate in the same trees, generation after generation. Migrating turtles closed down whole runways this past summer (2011) at JFK Airport as they made their way back to home ground. The instinct to ...
So many things separate Christians into groups: denominations, different ways of practicing the sacraments, different understandings of how to organize the church, different attitudes toward social issues like sexuality and money, even different perceptions of who Christ was. With all of that disagreement and separation, what unites us? Is there any common ground among us, other than simply calling ourselves Christians? Are we hopelessly divided, or can we push aside some of these barriers and embrace as ...