Sermon and Worship Resources

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Luke 4:21-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

The “Phantom of the Opera,” “Mardi Gras Celebration,” “Halloween,” “The Masque of the Red Death” –and I’m sure many more. All times when we wear masks. We as people in fact have a kind of fascination with masking, whether we are masking ourselves or unsure of who lies behind the mask of someone else. Masks for us intrigue us and reveal our excitement for mystery and the unknown. What lurks behind the mask of the “Phantom?” We want to know. Is he disfigured? Shy? A hero? A psychopath? Our curiosity keeps us ...

2. The Grande Masquerade

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . When it comes to God’s grace, we all will be equally examined! To be redeemed requires us to stand unmasked and revealed before God! True conversion means that we have unveiled our naked heart. Jesus’ short but powerful parable remains as ... it all. And if we are honest with ourselves, so do we. To be truly redeemed, as the tax collector in Jesus’ story, we must agree to unmask ourselves, to stand before God in all of our messiness, in all of our shame, in all of our guilt, in all of our despair, in all ...

3. Would You Be a Saint?

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... on All Saints Day is by stripping off all those masks. We expose who we really are, what we really care about, who we really love - once the masks come off. If All Hallows’ Eve is all about Masking, All Saints Day is all about Unmasking - unmasking the saints. Saints do not wear masks. Saints do wear their hearts on their sleeves. Saints do wear weariness in well doing. Saints do wear crowns of suffering and long-suffering. Saints do wear crowns of martyrdom sometimes. Saints do mess up and bleed and ...

4. Down A Garden Path

Genesis 2:4-25, Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

... we have such a good and gracious God offering to be our Lord? That's the faithful and needed response in both the garden and the desert: to let God be God. To let God be our God. With God's help, let us unravel ordinary events, test familiar impulses, unmask our habits and routines and learn whether our lives are growing in the love and grace and goodness of God, or whether we're drifting or driven somewhere else. Our faith is meant to guide and keep us in the most usual moments and places, as well as in ...

5. Double Image

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

William G. Carter

... the window, we see a world of division and war. There are debts to pay and dangers that scare us to death. It looks like our children are at risk, and the future seems tenuous. But now and then, as we follow Jesus, this weary, old world is unmasked as an illusion, and we see beyond a shadow of a doubt that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 1. As reported by Michael McManus, Scranton Times 24 January 1993. 2. Gavan Daws, Holy Man (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), p. 249. 3. William H. Willimon ...

6. Real Solutions To Real Problems

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Lee Griess

... don't wear a 16. I've always worn a size 14 shirt, and that's what I want now." "But if you wear a size 14," the tailor said, "you're apt to experience terrible neck pains, throbbing headaches, and recurring dizzy spells." Without knowing it the tailor had unmasked the man's real problem. And that's the title for the sermon this morning -- Real Solutions To Real Problems. In some ways, this last chapter of John's gospel presents us with a problem. As we read it, it strikes us as strange. It's almost as if ...

7. The Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Brett Blair

... relationships. I am convinced that apathy is just a word until you see it in action. That’s what the Seinfeld show did so well over the course of its nine years. It hid the apathy of the characters behind the mask of humor. In that final episode Jerry Seinfeld unmasked it and the critics couldn’t stand it. The show wasn’t trying to get a laugh it was trying to make a point. It is the point of Jesus’ parable: Anytime we refuse to stop and help and be a friend to someone in need, then we are ...

8. A Daughter of Jacob

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... attitude toward the Gentiles. Hobbs says, "What better way could he show the vicious nature of the tradition of the elders than by assuming their role himself."15 Hobbs sees this part of the miracle story as an acted parable performed for the disciples to unmask their vicious attitude that would ignore a woman in great need simply because she was a Gentile. The point is stingingly clear. The outside world was crying out to the priest-nation of Israel for help, and they answered them not a word. William ...

9. Molehills and Mountains

Matthew 6:25-34, Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... and we are bound to end up in a dead end. You know, the coming of Christ, His ministry, death and resurrection, remind us that we might as well stop being imposters, something or someone we are not. Jeremy Taylor once wrote: "Death is midnight when all men must unmask." That’s one of the principles of living eternal life, as Christians should be. We think we can judge a person just by looking at him. At best, we can only guess. But in eternal life, there is no guessing. We will know! Only the good will be ...

10. The Temptation To Pass By On The Other Side

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Brett Blair

11. A Real Solution For Real Problems

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

King Duncan

... I’d be glad to do it for you, sir," the tailor replied. "However, if you wear a size l4 neck I can guarantee you that you’re going to have terrible neck pains, throbbing headaches and recurring dizzy spells." The tailor had unknowingly unmasked this man’s real problem. Real problems require real solutions. Consider man’s basic problem. There is something wrong at the very heart of humanity. Something sick, something twisted, something perverted. The Bible calls it sin. But where is the solution? The ...

12. Mentor, Mediator, Master

1 Timothy 2:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... as a superb orator and a model student. Yet, Karen-a severe dyslexic had developed elaborate ruses through 12 years of school to cover the fact that she couldn ™t even read street signs! For her whole life, Karen had lived in fear that people would unmask her inadequacy. Her energy went into concealing the truth. She had become a slave to protecting her false image. (1) Many people play the same game in their relationship with God. In their hearts they know the hidden sins that prevent a real relationship ...

13. Bracing For The Rough Times

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... nothing. But it is human nature to want to know how things turn out in the end. Those of you who are mystery fans think what it would be like to watch the progress of your favorite mystery right up until the moment when the dastardly villain is to be unmasked and then have the power go out, leaving you literally "in the dark." Those of you who are soap opera fans. Imagine watching your favorite soap right up until the time that Jennifer has to decide between Larry and Mark (I'm making these names up as I go ...

14. The Way Up Is the Way Down

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... ? You could have fooled me. Not the kind of people, I would say, this world thinks important or worth emulating. And that is precisely the point. The first four blessing of the kingdom don’t look like blessings at all. They look like death, and are. They unmask ambitions and ask, “Do you really want to get this close to this God?” This is what the kingdom of God looks like. As I said earlier, if Jesus had started with this material, he may not have had many takers. His initial call was this, “Follow ...

15. Playing to the Right Audience

Matthew 6:16-18, Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... reminder that my belly is not God, and that the grace of Christ is sufficient. I often cry when I fast, not because of low blood sugar but because I see my sins with new clarity and fresh grief. Quietness steals over my soul and my true motives are unmasked. I find that I cannot fast and remain hardhearted toward God. As we humble our bodies by kneeling, so we humble our souls with fasting. Fasting has the remarkable property of revealing all the things to which I am overly attached. What a tune up is to a ...

16. Who Is Isaiah’s Servant?

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Sermon

Ken Lentz

... found trust in a loving God and his servant who transferred his vindication to those in exile, those in bondage to the law, those, like her, lost in low esteem. So who is Isaiah's "servant"? Like the little green man, he is the one who unmasked himself, who shoved the dark curtain aside to show God's unfathomable, unconditional love, the love of perfect justice, the love that finds the lost, gives sight to the blind, and opens the gate for those in self-imposed exile. Amen. 1. Krister Stendahl, Proclamation ...

17. No Pleasing Some People

John 12:1-8

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... hers! That had to make some of the listeners angry.... It's not easy to serve some of these populations. How do you choose who is really in need? We've all heard stories about people holding up signs reading "Will Work For Food" who have been unmasked as frauds, for instance. I remember well the compassion fatigue I suffered after serving a congregation in Los Angeles for over a decade. There were always calls for food and money, and it was tough to decide who needed it when there wasn't that much on our ...

18. Chaos and Solitude

Mark 6:30-44, 53-56

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... help people improve the rhythm of their lives. In the closing devotions, the pastor, who was not the retreat leader, read Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God." He also quoted Henri Nouwen, the Roman Catholic spiritual writer: "In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. It is this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth ...

19. In It for the Long Haul

John 6:60-69

Sermon

King Duncan

... Lord’s life. He donates much of his money to the poor. He repays everyone he has cheated. He treats kindly people whom he had never noticed before. In short, he enters into the way of life of a saint. Sometime later his old lover sees him and seeks to unmask him before his wife. A struggle ensues, the mask is tossed to the ground, and his old lover laughs in triumph. He must turn and face his wife. But when he does, he is shocked by her question. She asks, “Why did you have a mask created that looks ...

20. Masks Off!

John 7:25-45 and 8:11-59

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... which I began the sermon, as the holiday began to merge with fun and merriment and medieval dramas acted out the fate of “costumed” souls.* As it is, this is the season of the year in which we celebrate a ritual of hiding and revealing, masking and unmasking. We as Christians follow a night of revelry and make-believe masking (for some the fasting and prayer of a watch night) with a day of feasting, worship, prayer, and honor for all those Christians who have given their lives in the name of Jesus, as ...

21. A Restless Spirit

1 Samuel 28:1-25

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... originally of Issachar, the interpreters of signs. The visual landscape metaphor, a place that is dim, murky, and ethereal depicts a soul in Saul which is lost, haunted by the unknown, and also lost to God. Reality is distorted. And in the midst, Saul is disguised. Unmasked, he finds himself cared for by the woman of En Dor, who bids him eat. Saul’s “disguise” or his “mask” so to speak is the powerful metaphor in this scripture. He pretends to be someone he’s not in order to relieve himself of ...

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