Sermon and Worship Resources

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Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

The central point of the text before us is contained in that phrase, "It is not good for the man to be alone." (Genesis 2:18) We all need solitude from time to time, to pull away, look at ourselves, ponder and evaluate. We need time to pray with a thorough honesty, to purge, to meditate; and then to find and re-establish and reground our roots and foundations. We all need that. We should take time...

2. Bringing Love Close

Deuteronomy 6:1-25

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

What John 3:16 is to Christianity, Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is to Judaism. "Hear O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." These are the words of the Shema, and as the words that follow indicate, the first words committed to memory by a Jewish child; the words that appear on the mezuza on a Jewish do...

3. Christ the King

Jeremiah 23:1-8

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

Trying to See; Three Kings Who Failed and the One Who, in Failure, Succeeded (All About Shepherds, How Justice Comes and God Working Secretly With a Secret Christian). All three of the lessons we read today are straining for something beyond their ability to understand. The Gospel is at the center, and, in the Gospel, the question is how can it be that the One Most Beloved by God, the Chosen, the ...

4. Confusion Over a Questioned Book

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

Were you confused by that passage read from the Book of Daniel? Don't feel bad. You are in good company. Daniel has been confusing people ever since it was written. It confused those rabbis who in the year 90 met in the coastal town of Jamnia to cast their votes on which of the historical writings were to be designated "sacred scripture." Daniel made it into the Bible by a majority vote, but many...

5. Death in a Hang-glider Accident

2 Samuel 18:19--19:8

Eulogy

George Paul Mocko

Norberth, My Son They had come as immigrants from Germany about 1950 - Isa, strikingly beautiful and capable; Horst, a skilled workman, quiet and solid. Their small house was carefully kept inside and out. But the focus of their lives was their only child, Norberth. In every way, Norberth was worthy of their love and work, their pride, their hope and ambition. Three months from his twenty-first bi...

6. Elijah and the Widow of Zarapheth

1 Kings 17:7-24

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

Elijah and the widow of Zarepheth - with all of its wondrous, miraculous content, is still a warm and human story, filled with so many details reflecting everyday life in the eighth century B.C. Times were once better for this widow. Her house has an upper room, an indicator of some prosperity. But after her husband died, it must have been a few years ago, things went from bad to worse. One by one...

7. His Suffering Servant

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

Jesus and His Yuppies; War and Wrong and an Answer for That in a Coconut Shell; (About Painful Healing); Two Holocausts and How in Three Pictures We Can See How God Worked in Them; also How He Works With Us. Isaiah 53, one of the poems of the Suffering Servant - a strange text to be read here in the fall of the year when it really belongs in Lent, does it not? Surely it does. Why is it here? Those...

8. Proper 23

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

Atlas, Hercules and Tantalus; a Powerful and Deadly Fruit; All About War and Rape and Divorce; Laziness and Guilt Trips and Punishment for All The Above But Don't Despair: a Touch of Salvation Too. As a boy, I was facinated with those Greek myths, the stories of Hercules and Atlas, Zeus and Mercury, Narcissus and Neptune. Let me tell you one of those - one which brings together the familiar words ...

9. Reformation Sunday

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

That Reformation Theme of How You Can't Find God in Head, Heart, or Hands: Something Jeremiah, Paul and Luther Agree on; Our Arrogance; How God Has to Find Us and WhatFaith is All About. How do you find out what God is like? What he is supposed to be doing in this world? What he wants from it and us? How do you find out what God is like? Reason, said the ancient Greeks. Apply logic and the only po...

10. Reformation Sunday

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

A Book Misunderstood; Jerusalem the Great and Jerusalem the Golden; Away With the Sea and Tears and In With Love; and Faith in a God Who Can Do Anything. One of the best comedy routines I've ever seen on TV took place in the waiting room of a veterinarian. Among those gathered was a man with a huge box which shuddered and lurched about from the struggles of the creature inside. Strange growls, fur...

11. Right When the World is Wrong

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

Jeremiah, the Crazy Old Coot Who Was Right When the World Was Wrong; How God Delivers and How Great it Is; and How to Say "Thanks.""Well, I don't like to say, 'I told you so', but ..." You've heard the line, maybe used it. You issue your warnings or give your advice. It is not taken. The events that follow fulfill all those warnings you issued, and then you say it or at least feel it. "Well, I don...

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