The Fourth of July makes us conscious of our roots. Have you ever thought what a leap of faith it was for Columbus to embark on his great adventure? Do you not marvel at his perseverance and commitment to his dream? I read somewhere that the average speed of the Santa Maria during the voyage across the Atlantic was two miles an hour. Yet we get frustrated when we have to slow down to 30 miles an hour in traffic. Do you wonder why his crew became almost mutinous at times? Do you understand how frustrated ...
Do you know what it's like to live between D-day and V-day? The idea comes from Anthony Hoekema. He writes: Jesus Christ has come, and therefore the decisive victory over sin, the devil and the flesh has been won. However, the victory is not yet complete. We live, as Cullmann puts it, between D-day and V-day: though the enemy has been decisively defeated, there remain pockets of resistance; there are still guerrilla troops to be defeated; there are still battles to be fought. In one sense, we already ...
Doesn’t it seem sometimes that the people who are NOT religious are a whole lot more fun than the people who are? At times the church suffers more at the hands of its friends than at the hands of its enemies. It suffers more from the rigidly righteous than from the blatantly irreligious. There are those who in their self-righteous zeal appoint themselves as monitors of other people’s morals and delight in pointing their fingers at the failings of everybody but themselves. Let’s face it: there have been a ...
In 1865, in a small town in Wisconsin, five-year-old Max Hoffman came down with cholera. Three days later, the doctor pulled the sheets over the boy’s head and pronounced him dead. Little Max was laid to rest in the village cemetery. That night, his mother awoke screaming: she had dreamt that her son was turning over in his grave. Trembling with fear, she begged her husband to go to the cemetery and immediately raise the coffin. Mr. Hoffman did his best to calm his wife, assuring her that while her ...
David Heller is a young Boston psychologist who, as part of a continuing research interest, collects letters children have written to God. “Dear God: Children’s Letters to God” (New York: Doubleday, 1987) is Heller’s second publication on this subject. In it he reports the following letter: “Dear God, I have doubts about you sometimes. Sometimes I really believe. Like when I was four and I hurt my arm and you healed it up fast. But my question is, if you could do this why don’t you stop all the bad in the ...
I wish that Ted Koppel would run for president. Sometimes he seems to make more sense than all of the politicians put together. You know him as the popular moderator of ABC’s “Nightline” program. In a speech at Duke University a year ago he said this: “We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is no. Not because it isn’t cool or smart or because you might end ...
A pastor was asked by a dear parishioner to attend a meeting of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) with him. It was the meeting that was considered an open meeting where people give testimonies and celebrate their anniversary of being sober. The church member gave his testimony. He shared how his life was in a shambles. He had almost killed himself and another person driving under the influence of alcohol. As part of his sentence and probation he was required to attend weekly meetings of AA. He said that when he ...
All Saints'' Day Message A few years ago, Dr. Fred Craddock went back to the little town in Tennessee where he grew up. His brother was ill, so he wanted to visit him. Late one Sunday afternoon, Craddock decided to drop by the small Disciples Church where he had worshipped as a child. He went in, saw a friend, and they walked around together. Dr. Craddock noticed the church had installed some new stained glass windows in the Sanctuary. He examined them carefully; they were beautiful. But he did not ...
Today, we continue our study of the book of James. Last week we examined James 1:1-4 and verse 12, and discovered some ways we can "TACKLE TROUBLES TRIUMPHANTLY." Today, we''re going to look at another word beginning with the letter "T"--Temptation. Once again, James does not say, "If tempted," but in verse 13, "When tempted, no man should say, God is tempting me.''" Yes, not one of us escapes temptation, and behind this ugly "t" word lies the source of many of our personal problems and corporate ills. We ...
Most of us will not have the unique opportunity of Alfred Nobel who read his own obituary. It happened because of a mistaken identity. Alfred''s brother died, but the news media had confused the name and thought Alfred had died. As he read his own obituary, he was horrified to find that he was referred to as the "dynamite king." He was pictured as someone who had spent his life gathering a great fortune from the manufacture of weapons of destruction. When he invented dynamite, he thought it would be an ...
We have all probably had the experience of being in the presence of someone who is normally composed and tranquil, and having that person suddenly erupt. A topic is introduced and immediately goes to the quick. It all seems so out of character. I can imagine Christian folks having a similar reaction to this story (found, incidentally, in all of the Gospels) of Jesus cleansing the temple. If you are fifty years or older and remember singing the old gospel song that talks about Jesus calling us "softly and ...
During World War II allied armies marched into Germany on their way to Berlin. Retreating German soldiers switched road signs and destroyed landmarks in an effort to confuse their enemy. And, to an extent, it worked, for many a G.I. followed a false marker only to end up in the wrong place. That just goes to show the need for landmarks, the importance of reliable signposts by which to steer. Here locally, landmarks like the courthouse, the river, the college, or the bridge are important in helping us find ...
The torches burned long into the night in the banquet hall. Their flickering light cast grotesque shadows across the huge table. Most of the seated revelers were slumped in their places sleeping off the effects of food and grog. There were a few murmured conversations, occasional outbursts of ribald laughter. Few but the king noticed when a tiny sparrow flew in the open window, pecked at a table scrap, circled the hall several times, then winged through another open window into the remaining night. The ...
Our scripture lesson this morning, the second scripture lesson which the sermon is based, comes from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, the 8th chapter. I’m beginning with the first verse and reading through the 11th verses, and I’m reading from the Revised Standard Version. This is the word of the Lord, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, ...
One of the most destructive foibles of human nature is the tendency to lock ourselves into rigid patterns of thinking, ruts of responding, and unalterable avenues of acting. It was this way of thinking that caused Jesus to condemn the Pharisees, admonishing them about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. The most common pattern into which we humans tend to move is what I call a negative cycle. I doubt if there’s anything more devastating to daily living, to our effective functioning, to creative and ...
Dick Sheppard was one of the great preachers of England in another generation. He was really one of the British church, a great preacher prophet. His preaching often set all of Britain aflame. The morning after he died, almost all of England mourned his passing, and a London newspaper proclaimed a great truth. The paper carried a picture of the pulpit of the church where Dick Sheppard preached, St. Martin’s in the Field. A soft light shone down on the reading desk where there was an open Bible, and in the ...
I was not only in Estonia, but in East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and I was there in a more or less official capacity. So in both of these countries, I was able to experience more than I would have had I not been personally and intimately involved with some of the people. We had been in the USSR for 10 days when we came to the German Democratic Republic, and when we moved from that republic into East Berlin and from East Berlin into West Berlin, we’d had a worship service and special prayer ...
A man went to his counselor about a personal problem. He said to the counselor, "I have a real struggle here. I feel like I'm violating my conscience. I'm not being completely honest with myself. I'm living a broken life." The counselor said to him, "Well, would you like to see me about strengthening your will power?" The man thought for a moment and replied, "No, what I would like to talk to you about is weakening my conscience." That reflects our age, doesn't it? We are not so much interested in ...
A man went to his counselor about a personal problem. He said to the counselor, "I have a real struggle here. I feel like I'm violating my conscience. I'm not being completely honest with myself. I'm living a broken life." The counselor said to him, "Well, would you like to see me about strengthening your will power?" The man thought for a moment and replied, "No, what I would like to talk to you about is weakening my conscience." That reflects our age, doesn't it? We are not so much interested in ...
Tired from another hectic day, a successful business executive collapsed into his easy chair. The bright colors of a magazine cover in his den caught his eye, and he picked up the periodical and leafed through it while he waited for dinner. It was an issue of The Christmas Annual. There were beautifully illustrated reproductions of Christmas carols. He began to read the familiar word, but being in a caustic mood, he began to revise the carols into parodies: "Silent night, holy night All is calm, all is ...
The Bible is a serious book, but it is not deadly serious. Did I say that too quickly for you to get it? The Bible is a serious book, but it is not deadly serious. Have you ever thought that we might have been better off if we had never put the printed word of God -- the Bible -- between black covers? Dostoevski, in his novel The Brothers Karamazov, characterize the artificial life of the monastery as "25 men trying to be saints, who sit around looking blankly at each other and eat cabbage." It's that kind ...
Dick Sheppard was one of the great preachers of England in another generation. He was really one of the British church, a great preacher prophet. His preaching often set all of Britain aflame. The morning after he died, almost all of England mourned his passing, and a London newspaper proclaimed a great truth. The paper carried a picture of the pulpit of the church where Dick Sheppard preached, St. Martin’s in the Field. A soft light shone down on the reading desk where there was an open Bible, and in the ...
It's funny what experiences and phrases will stay with you from childhood. I still remember a line from a song which apparently was popular, for at least a short period of time, in my early childhood. It was a half-funny, half-pathetic little lament from someone who felt rejected and unsuccessful. As I recall, each verse ended with the phrase, "I guess I'll go eat worms." Most of us can understand the mood of the song, if not the dietary remedy. Every one of us feels like a failure at one time or another. ...
Some of you have known me long enough to know that one of my favorite theologian is Charles Schultz, the artist who gave us the wonderful Peanuts cartoons. In one of my favorite cartoons, Lucy comes storming into the room and demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus. “These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single ...
I don’t know how many times I have used Oswald Chambers’ devotional classic, My Utmost for His Highest. At least every three or four years I go back to it for resourcing my daily spiritual reading and always -- without fail -- I am ministered to, receiving challenge and insight not received before. I remember the experience I had the last time I used it. The meditation began with this sentence from Hebrews 13, verses 5-6: “He hath said . . . so that we may boldly say.” Then came these two sentences: “My ...