Sermon and Worship Resources

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When somebody you have wronged forgives you, you are spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience. When you forgive someone who has wronged you, you are spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride for both parties. Forgiveness means the freedom again to be at peace inside your own skin and to be glad in each other's presence.

Frederick Buechner

Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.

Frederick Buechner

3. A Sad Fact about Life

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Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner once looked back at his high school class and observes a rather sad fact about life: "In my class, as in any class, at any school, there were students who had a real flair, a real talent, for something. Maybe it was for writing or acting or sports. Maybe it was an interest and a joy in working with people toward some common goal, a sense of responsibility for people who in some...

Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

Frederick Buechner

5. Beyond Darkness

John 9: 1-41

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Frederick Buechner

"People are prepared for everything except for the fact that beyond the darkness of their blindness there is a great light. They are prepared to go on breaking their backs plowing the same old field until the cows come home without seeing, until they stub their toes on it, that there is a treasure buried in that field rich enough to buy Texas. They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains ...

Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back; in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down i...

Frederick Buechner

7. God Is Like a Shepherd

John 10:1-21

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Frederick Buechner

'God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world,' Robert Browning wrote, and the psalm is not saying that any more than you or I can say it either. Whoever wrote it had walked through the valley of the shadow the way one way or another you and I have walked there too. He says so himself. He believed that God was in his Heaven despite the fact that he knew as well as we do that all was far from ri...

8. The Love That Conquers the World

Matthew 22:34-46; Mark 12:28-34

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Frederick Buechner

The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to ...

9. The Marvelous Paradox of Christmas

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Frederick Buechner

The claim that Christianity makes for Christmas is that at a particular time and place God came to be with us Himself. When Quirinius was governor of Syria, in a town called Bethlehem, a child was born who, beyond the power of anyone to account for, was the high and lofty One made low and helpless. The One who inhabits eternity comes to dwell in time. The One whom none can look upon and live is de...

10. The Need to Tell Someone

John 1:43-51

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Frederick Buechner

One winter I sat in Army fatigues somewhere near Anniston, Alabama, eating my supper out of a mess kit. The infantry training battalion that I had been assigned to was on bivouac. There was a cold drizzle of rain, and everything was mud. The sun had gone down. I was still hungry when I finished and noticed that a man nearby had something left over that he was not going to eat. It was a turnip, an...

God is all-powerful; God is all good; evil things happen. You can reconcile any two of these propositions with each other, but you cannot reconcile all three. The problem of evil is perhaps the greatest single problem for religious faith.

Frederick Buechner

Pay mind to your own life, your own health, and wholeness. A bleeding heart is of no help to anyone if it bleeds to death.

Frederick Buechner

Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage.

Frederick Buechner

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

Frederick Buechner

To confess your sins to God is not to tell him anything he doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the bridge.

Frederick Buechner

The trouble oftentimes with religious people is that they try to be more spiritual than God himself.

Frederick Buechner

Of the 7 deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is you...

Frederick Buechner

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