... me which way the girl is moving? Right to left? Or left to right? [Or you could show a photo that looks like one thing….then alter the colors in the same photo to highlight the photo underneath.] So what did you really see? Our eyes can be deceptive. Our sense of touch can be deceptive. Even our taste can betray us –think of when you have a cold! Let me tell you a story. It’s one I think you all know. There was once a little girl, who was told by her mother to take a meal to her sick grandmother ...
... still there are five main ones, and two biggies in the five: sight and sound. Even those of us with poor vision and tin ears still rely heavily on sight and sound to get around. Taste and touch are less obviously used, but absolutely necessary. Our sense of touch keeps us from absent-mindedly leaning on a red hot burner or petting a puppy with the disposition of a boxer. Sight, sound, touch, taste they are the four senses that give us crucial information and safely connect us to our environment. Of all the ...
... wine. We see the sunlight reflected off the silver in the communion trays. In Communion, God is attempting to reach us on the most fundamental level. We take Christ into ourselves not only through taste, but through our eyes, through our ears, through our senses of touch and smell. Communion is God reaching out to us in every way that God possibly can. So, let's not take the Sacrament for granted, just because it's familiar. There's a beautiful incident recorded by Thomas Pettepiece, a Methodist pastor, who ...
In the gospel text there is an opportunity to meet Jesus, using every one of our senses. The disciples have an opportunity here to see him, to hear him, to touch him, to smell him, and to taste with him. Every one of the senses is used for recognition of the Lord. Perhaps in this text we might also look to heighten and enliven our senses as we also seek to receive the wonder of his resurrection. Telling our stories to one another is a natural and very human thing to do. The disciples are telling their ...
God created us to be social beings. Life is not intended to be experienced in total isolation though moments of solitude are therapeutic. We live on the planet earth with other people and so it is essential for every person to develop meaningful relationships with significant others. Each person is introduced into society through a family unit, the most fundamental organism in existence today. Human relationships do not automatically survive and certainly do not thrive without constant nurturing. In other ...
There’s an old legend that tells how God sent one of his angels to Satan with the message that all the methods the devil uses to defeat Christians would be taken from him. The devil pleaded to be allowed to keep only one. The angel, thinking it an unusual, modest request from the greedy devil, agreed Satan could keep that one. “Which one would you want to keep?” the angel inquired. “Let me keep discouragement,” was Lucifer’s reply. The angel agreed. Satan could keep discouragement. And the devil rejoiced ...
At the tender age of eleven, my father and his three siblings were orphaned. His father died in the cold of winter. His mother fled for fear. The four children were left to fend for themselves. In a real drama of Survivor, my father set out the following spring to find work on farms as a hired hand. For 87 years now, he has dug out a living by the sweat of his brow. A few weeks ago, I sat by his hospital bed, holding his hand as he awakened from surgery. My father's hands are huge. If he ever gets you in ...
Today we’re beginning a series of sermons on coping - coping as a Christian. To cope is to “contend or struggle successfully.” Now I had some hesitancy about the use of the word cope in the title of this series. A lot of people are talking about coping. Being who I am, a Christian minister seeking to proclaim the word of God, I was not interested just in a series of self-help, psychological messages. So I thought for awhile that I would talk about conquering as Christians. Paul said we Christians are to be ...
Does your church have a mission statement? There are very few now that don't. Remind your congregation what it is. Can they recite it by heart? Does your church have an image statement? There are very few now that do. But in an image culture, it's more important to have an image statement than a mission statement. The city of Chicago came up with an image statement for itself in 1999 and it brought into the city hundreds of millions of dollars. The image that best captured their history and heritage was ...
Let us pray: Gracious and eternal God, we pause now to hear your word as we worship together in this holy season of Lent. Today we continue to explore the powers of prayer, faith and healing which you have granted to us. In these times together O God, we pray that you would open our hearts and our minds so that we may have faith and understanding. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. You may have heard the expression, "He has an Atlas complex." This usually refers to an individual who seems to have an exaggerated ...
It is no surprise to me that James closes this writing with an admonition on prayer to God for wisdom and knowledge for all areas of our life. By praying, we experience the understanding that God''s grace is sufficient for all our needs and that He is sovereign over all of them. I read recently of a family on vacation who wanted to enjoy some time of recreation in a nearby playground. The little girl wanted to get in but the gate was locked. Her father explained that she couldn''t play there because of the ...
I doubt there is a person in this sanctuary who doesn’t know the AT&T ad which says, "Reach out and touch someone." Cincinnati Bell plays it for us all the time. It is on the television and on our car radios. We are bound to run into it at one of the commercial breaks. If we do not watch television or listen to the radio but we go to the ballgame, there it is on the big scoreboard in centerfield between the innings. In great big letters comes this great big sign, "Reach out and touch someone." The music ...
Robert Bly has given us a painful and scathing analysis of our present American society. He titled his work The Sibling Society. Bly confesses he began this work in a lighthearted vein. He employed poetry, fairy tales, and legends to highlight the contradictions he noted all around him. However, he soon discovered that he was into some really serious business. Essentially, what he uncovered was that we are all swimming in a tank of half-adults. For Bly, Elvis and Woodstock were watersheds at which time all ...
In a recent "Dennis the Menace" comic in the Lima News, Dennis' line to his mother is: "Before I tell you what happened, remember I'm just a little kid." My line to you this morning is: "Before I tell you about Jeremiah, remember I'm just a preacher." I'm just a messenger. Jeremiah, the prophet of God, was just a messenger. Jeremiah said to God, "I don't know what to say." God said, "I'll tell you what to say!" And what God said is what Jeremiah said. Jeremiah's message to the people of Israel, eventually ...
"Life is truly a ride," says comedian Jerry Seinfeld. "We're all strapped in, and no one can stop it. As you make each passage from youth to adulthood to maturity, sometimes you put your arms up and scream, sometimes you just hang on to that bar in front of you. But the ride is the thing. I think the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up." With equal wit, Cynthia Kraman asks, "What If the Hokey Pokey IS REALLY what it's all about ...
We live in a culture that is increasingly secular. At its best, secularism is simply what we Americans call the separation of church and state. It is a practical way to keep people from having to live lives regimented by someone else's religious convictions and that keeps countries from being torn by conflicts between religious groups that all want to write the rules. There is a lot of history in our world that argues for the practicality of that kind of arrangement. As it has taken shape among us, however ...
Do you ever wish you counted for something, that you had value? All the talk about purpose in church circles these days tries to respond to the natural human desire to count for something, to be somebody. But I worry about that way of thinking. If your value is all about your purpose in life, what if you fail? Are you then without any value? Today's gospel lesson is Jesus' final words of instruction to his disciples, as he commissioned them to undertake their mission and continued instructing them about ...
Today, we are going to talk about conflict. How do you feel about conflict? I suspect that most of us don't like it. Yet, conflict is a nearly constant part of life as most of us experience it. It surrounds us in many ways in every aspect of our living. People who believe in God know that they must live through every interaction with life as an interaction with God. One of the big questions that people of faith must answer is: "How can we live through the conflict situations of our lives as interactions ...
"It's not about you." Did anyone ever say that to you? Something is going on. Some conflict is being worked out or some decision is being made about something that is going to happen and you are feeling threatened or put upon or involved in some other way. Then someone who is more deeply involved says to you, "This is not about you." At first that may hurt your feelings because most of us operate on the assumption that almost everything is about us. But when the realization soaks in that it really is not ...
It's texts like this one from Acts 19 that create so many misunderstandings and downright disagreements about baptism for all ages. There was a story about a mom who glanced out through her kitchen window at her children playing across the yard. It was one of those games children play that looks complicated to the outside eye but for them it makes perfect sense. They had brought out a shovel and dug a hole in the soft dirt of the garden, dragged over the garden hose, and had an array of dolls lying on the ...
A pastor was talking one day with some men whom he knew were not actively involved in any religion. He was surprised to learn that all of the men believed in God. But when they gave their reasons for believing, they all told stories of some narrow escape in which they assumed that God had miraculously interceded to save them or someone they knew from disaster. One told about a narrow escape in a traffic accident, another told of a day when, if he had not been late leaving for work, he might have been ...
The following is an article written by Keller published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1933. I All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours. But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited ...
The gospel of Jesus Christ is for our children! "The promise is for you and your children" (Acts 2:39). It always has been. Since the dawn of the grace covenant, God has spoken of his interest in and love for our children. He tells Abraham, "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you ... to be your God and the God of your descendants after you" (Genesis 17:7). Children always have been, and are, a vital part of God's covenant plan for his world ...
This morning we want to talk about food. That's a relevant subject for most of us. The two biggest sellers in any bookstore, according to Andy Rooney, are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it. Orson Welles once said, "My doctor has advised me to give up those intimate little dinners for four, unless, of course, there are three other people eating with me." Champion archer Rick McKinney confesses that he ...
Luke 9:10-17, Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, John 6:1-15
Sermon
Lori Wagner
“I am the Bread of Life.” (John 6:35) Prop: a puppy or kitten; recipe for barley flat bread I have with me a little friend today [allow for the oohs and aahs]. Who would like to come and pet him? I know last Sunday was World Animal Sunday. But every Sunday should be World Animal Sunday, our pets are such an important part of our families. [No rushing, give people time … especially children to come up front or walk about the congregation with him….allowing people to see him and touch him. Consider letting ...