Sermon and Worship Resources

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1. Never as Stereotypes

Mark 1:40-45

Illustration

John A. Stroman

Jesus always met men and women on the level of their need, regardless of who they were or what they had done. He met everyone as human beings, never as stereotypes. Stereotypes were as powerful then as they are now. Once a label is placed on a person the human being vanishes. Many labels were given to people in the New Testament such labels as tax collector, Samaritan, Roman soldier, prostitute, rich young man, Pharisee, sinner, publican, leper. They all appear in ...

2. Walking the Streets

Matthew 10:1-42, Matthew 9:35-38

Sermon

Richard L. Thulin

... fact that I am a professor. Every once in awhile someone will accost me with words like, "Well, you wouldn't know about that! You live in an ivory tower." The plain fact is that the speaker doesn't even know me, but then that is what gives birth to stereotypes in the first place. I'm usually able to avoid an immediate defensive reaction. "What do you mean?" I ask. "Oh," he says, "you live behind safety glass. You don't walk the streets like I do. You have your head in the clouds. You're out of touch with ...

3. Proper 25

Psalm 65:1-13, Luke 18:9-14, Joel 2:28-32, 2 Timothy 4:9-18, 2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... . It is doubtful that all Pharisees would make the prayer of the one in the parable. It is even more doubtful that every publican would bemoan his activities as this one did. We need to be careful that we would not be shocked if our stereotypes were shattered by persons who don't fit the image we have of them. CONTEXT Context of Luke 18 Just prior to the parable of the two men praying, Jesus had told the parable of the persistent widow and the bad judge. It is placed in the context of the ...

4. Week Four Of Lent

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... is one idea. Those who live on the other side of the tracks are isolated; it is best to stay away from these people. The other side of the tracks generally means the bad side; one does not want to be caught on that side. What would people think? A stereotype comes to mind when we think of those on the other side of the tracks. People who live there are poor, many times unruly. They are certainly not of the ilk with whom we choose to associate. Contact with such people will only lead to problems for us. In ...

5. No Fifth Wheels in God’s Economy

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... need to share their lives with singles. Singles and marrieds can both reap the rich rewards of being affirmed, touched, and stimulated intellectually and spiritually on the right moral plane. Human resources which God has redeemed are too important for inaccurate, out-of-place stereotypes to cut us off from each other. A single person is simply another member of the family of God, a human being with the same gifts and needs as other human beings. They ask no more than any other person and stand ready to ...

6. Only Sex? (New)

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... ! Tell that to the young women in today’s WNBA. Not only are these women playing basketball full court on a professional level with skill and stamina, some of the taller women are even beginning to dunk the ball. Dumb stereotypes have done much to hold women back. Sexual stereotypes are being slowly erased in sports, in business and in the home, and that is good. But there are still differences between males and females, some of which are truly worthy of celebration. Jerry Hayner in his book, Yes, God ...

7. A Hands-on Religion

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... This is how Jesus always met men and women. He met them on the level of their need, regardless of who they were or what they had done. He met everyone as human beings, never as stereotypes. Stereotypes were as powerful then as they are now. Once a label is placed on a person the human being vanishes. Many labels were given to people in the New Testament -- such labels as tax collector, Samaritan, Roman soldier, prostitute, rich young man, Pharisee, sinner or publican. They all appear in ...

8. A Lesson From Prayers Overheard

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... , one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The key to this parable has to do with the direction of each man's eyes. But more about that in a moment. On first reading there seems to be no great mystery here. Blinded by our stereotypes, we have long "known" that the Pharisees were insincere and self-centered deceivers of the people who cared more for the praise of their peers than they did for the providence of God. Similarly the publican, honest and forthcoming in his confession, strikes us as a rather ...

9. Building Bridges While Getting Shot at from Both Shores

Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... 's text, but one of the most striking is Paul and Silas' individualization of the jailor. The ultimate in dehumanization is the lumping of people together into the category of otherness. No matter how badly they were treated, Paul and Silas didn't stereotype the jailer into a category of beast or despot. Because they refused to dehumanize their captors, they were able to restore them to relationship with God and others. The only way Iraqi prisoners could have been treated so inhumanely was because we didn ...

10. Sisters

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

King Duncan

... that meant opening her home to his twelve disciples as well. This meant entertaining thirteen hungry men, at least twelve of whom were used to having women wait on them hand and foot. The disciples probably did very little to help. Here again, we are dealing with stereotypes. But some of you were brought up in a world where there was men’s work and there was women’s work. Men didn’t help very much with cooking or cleaning. It was no different back then. Can you imagine the burden that Martha must have ...

11. The Day of the Lord

2 Peter 3:1-18

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... be glory both now, utterly sufficient for the demands of the present life, and forever (eis hēmeran aiōnos, lit. “unto the eternal day”), i.e., right up to the day of the Lord (3:7, 10, 12) which ushers in eternity. Amen may well be a later stereotyped addition to the earlier MSS. But its appropriateness (“So it is!”) at the close of Peter’s exhortation finds a ready echo in the believer’s heart. Additional Notes 3:17 Dear friends (agapētoi): Beloved by God, as in 3:1, 8, 14; 1 Pet. 2:11; 4 ...

12. Seeing The Whole Person

John 4:1-26

Sermon

David Belgum

... A Samaritan asked me if he could work on our fishing crew here on the Sea of Galilee. I said, 'No way, man!' I didn't want to start a fight; but I sure didn't want him hanging around." Did you catch me saying "redneck"? Isn't that stereotyping? We must remember that, according to John's account, the disciples had only been in training a short while. There was the dramatic lesson at the wedding at Cana, when they really started believing in Jesus. Then there was the time they went on retreat at Capernaum for ...

13. Of Preachers and Preaching

Micah 1:8-16

Sermon

... not take me long after entering the ministry to become sharply aware that I was considered somehow different from other people. This distressed me because I did not feel all that different, and I spent too much energy trying to shuck off the stereotypes people persisted in imposing upon me. Let me take this opportunity, therefore, to assure you of what you doubtless have discovered already - that preachers are very human human beings. In most protestant circles the tradition has been that they are men, like ...

14. Authority Through Servanthood

Matthew 20:20-28, Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... first to be little more than an ambitious mother wanting preferential positions for her two sons. Much more than that is there. All who have ears to hear let us hear! The Stereotypical Jewish Mother - in All of Us The mother of James and John wanted Jesus to insure them the right and left hand places in his Kingdom. We all know the stereotype of the meddlesome but well-meaning Jewish mother, but it is really only natural for all parents to want the best for their children. (As St. Mark tells this same story ...

15. Only One Superpower

1 Chronicles 29:1-9

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... are white people. White people is a broad category, including everybody from red-necks to Rockefellers, from skin-heads to socialists. But somehow in our thoughts and conversations we do make those generalizing, stereotyping statements about African-Americans. But African-Americans are a diverse category too. Such stereotyping statements are created by prejudice and create prejudice. Such prejudice fragments God's family. When we spend our money, do we shop from a moral perspective? That is, are we aware of ...

16. The Preacher Was A Bigot

Jonah 3:1-10

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... . We even learned the little pet names: niggers, coons, spades, darkies. Carefully taught. Of course, the lessons were not (and are not) only verbal. The most powerful reinforcement has always been separation. By keeping separate, we could (and can) develop stereotypes because stereotypes only work on people with whom we are not really acquainted. And the children are carefully taught. I will grant that race relations in America are better in 2003 than they were a generation ago. We no longer regularly read ...

17. Singing The Lord's Song In A Strange Land (ii)

Psalm 137:1-9

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... old for that kind of life now, and she came to Brewster Place and Mattie took her in. But she tried it one more time -- her old life -- got involved with a preacher, thinking that she could settle down for life. But he was the stereotypical Charleton, unscrupulous, using others, and especially women for his own putrid selfishness. After a night out with him, and the shocking discovery that he was no different from the rest, Etta was returning home to Mattie. The author tells the story: "Etta removed her hat ...

18. In The Beginning And The End...God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... fundamentalists who want to take a six day creation day as literal, and who try to use the Bible to tell us that the earth is about six thousand years old, which any sixth grader knows just isn't so. The mistake in the position of the stereotypical creationist is that he wants to use the Bible as a scientific textbook and it was never intended to be that. The Bible is a book of faith in the God of Creation. The Old Testament poets were not attempting to answer the question of how the world came ...

19. Courage Me!

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... if we would persevere in our witness?*How many children would come back home from the far country if we would persevere in our love? I talked to a fellow a few weeks ago -- a young man who would almost fit the typical Yuppie stereotype. But it's only been lately that he fits that stereotype. He spent five years in the far country of drugs, sexual promiscuity, wasted living, and do you know what he said to me, and he said it about his father. "He didn't give up on me," and then he added, "neither did God ...

20. Thank God for Dads

Galatians 2:11-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... take the time to go walking with your wife!” The room really got quiet. Finally, a man in the middle of the group raised his hand. “Yes?” replied the teacher. “Is it all right if she carries a golf bag while we walk?” he asked. Again, I am stereotyping. There are many sensitive, caring men in the world. But it is also true that many men grow up fighting for a place in the sun. Their first instinct is to be competitive, to look out for number one. This causes them to be insular. If you let others ...

21. The Shared Life of the People of God

Galatians 6:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... to see me when they learned I was moving to another city. They were a motley crew, really. Many of the fellows had long hair and beards; the girls were dressed in the rebellious garb of the day. On the street they would have been stereotyped as “hippies,” “dropouts,” or “delinquents.” They would have felt out of place in our congregation on Sunday morning, and many of my parishioners would have felt out of place with them. They were not the kind of youth that are usually in church on Sunday ...

22. What Really Matters

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

King Duncan

... us that either. Some interpreters have assumed that Mary was younger because Martha owned the home. Or perhaps the supposed birth order of Martha and Mary has been deduced from their behavior. We often stereotype the older sister as being more responsible; the younger more free-spirited. Whether you buy into this stereotype probably depends upon your experience with your sister or with sisters you have known. When our story opens Jesus is teaching in Martha’s home and free-spirited Mary is sitting in rapt ...

23. Mary and Martha: Nine to Five and Five to Nine

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... like on-site day care, staggered work hours, job sharing, and gender-equal merit promotions. Eventually the boss gets the credit and is promoted to Brazil, with the women ascending in the New York corporate world. In a delightful way, the movie pokes fun at the stereotypical roles of women. It shows how effective and progressive they can be in the nine-to-five work place as well as in the five-to-nine domestic scene. They can be thinkers and doers. Man: We have no biblical equivalents of Dolly Parton, Lily ...

24. Disobedience and Defeat

Judges 2:6-3:6

Understanding Series

Cheryl A. Brown

... one believes, or gives intellectual assent to, but essentially something one does. The biblical concept of faith is more accurately expressed in terms of faithfulness. What does it mean to do “evil in the eyes of the LORD”? The expression is one of the most stereotypic in the Deuteronomic History. It constitutes the opening framework of the bulk of the judges’ stories (Judg. 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1), added by the Deuteronomic author to press home his point. We are not left to figure its meaning ...

25. Othniel

Judges 3:7-11

Understanding Series

Cheryl A. Brown

... we have already gotten a glimpse of him in action (1:13–14), though hardly so. He is presented as the paradigmatic judge. Significantly, the elements commonly found—though not consistently—in the major judges’ stories all appear in Othniel’s story. 3:7–8 The stereotypic formula occurs for the first time in a judge’s story: The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD. The evil consisted of two things: they forgot the LORD their God and they served the Baals and the Asherahs. It is clear by ...

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