Sermon and Worship Resources

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Isaiah 65:17-25

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

I am a lousy typist. My keyboard skills are rudimentary and functional, at best. I blame it all on the fact that I grew up before the computer age and went to a small boarding school in Australia for my high school years, one that didn't offer a typing class to those students on the academic track. The end result is that I suffer from a lot of stray finger movements and poor positioning when I typ...

2. A Working God

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

As I originally prepared this sermon the news was breaking about the tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, with the Honorable Reverend Pinckney and eight of his parishioners gunned down in the historic black Emmanuel A.M.E. church. But this tragic act couldn’t be conveniently blamed on Islamic extremists. No! This time the perpetrator in custody had the blasphemous audacity to pretend to ...

3. Cross Choices

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

A man once told his friends of a system he had invented to preserve domestic peace. “The day we married ten years ago,” he said, “we decided that all important decisions should be made by me. Small decisions were left to my wife.” When his friends asked him how it had worked out, he replied, “Perfectly, there hasn’t been a single hitch in the entire ten years. Of course,” he added, “no important d...

4. Dealing with T-A-R-E-ists

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

This is a hard text for me because I am a typical first child in many respects. You other first children may recognize yourselves in some of what I’m about to say. As a first child I want everything to be black and white, and so, when things go wrong, I become a problem solver who wants to make it all right again. But that doesn’t always work out, as I discovered the year I was eight. Just before ...

5. Earth, Wind, and Fire

Joel 2:23-32

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

While serving as a missionary to Madagascar with my family in the 1980s and 90s, I witnessed at least two locust swarms. On one level I was fascinated by the spectacle of a good portion of the sky suddenly becoming black with a thick cloud of locusts. There was something eerily beautiful about the shimmering light that managed to pass through the swarm to the ground as the insects passed overhead...

6. Good for What Ails Us

Matthew 9:35-38

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

Before modern medical science really took off in the last fifty years of the past millennium, there were a lot of home and folk remedies being prescribed by well-meaning individuals, but also by con artists and charlatans. The remedy was often administered accompanied by the phrase that the supposed cure was “good for what ails you.” The classic, all-purpose remedy for nearly every condition was a...

7. Help From Habakkuk?

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

It can be really depressing to listen to the news anymore. It doesn't matter which network you watch, everywhere you turn it's the same old bad news: natural and manmade disasters, the continuing conflicts in the Middle East and in Iraq and Afghanistan, medical miscues, entertainers gone wild and self-destructive, sports heroes disappointing us. Then there's a federal government that often seems ...

8. Lord, Let My Heart Be Good Soil

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

The song “Lord, Let My Heart Be Good Soil”[1] by Handt Hanson, is a beautiful piece that suggests a deep sense of longing for something important. The melody, tone, and words all come together perfectly as an interpretation of the gospel reading for today. While it is tempting to want to move on immediately to what a story like the parable of the sower means that reaction is usually an attempt to ...

9. Making Ourselves At Home

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

In a scene from the romantic comedy, ‘While You Were Sleeping', "Ox" Callaghan is waxing eloquent at the breakfast table one morning about those rare moments in life when everything seems to be going just right and falling into place. "In that one minute," he says, "you have peace." But his son, Jack, who is Ox's partner in the family business, has finally decided it is time to break the news to ...

10. Making Something Out Of Nothing

Haggai 1:15b—2:9

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

Making something out of nothing. We often use that phrase in a negative sense. For example, when we believe someone is reading way too much into a situation or when someone is overreacting and jumping to conclusions that aren't merited by the actual situation or facts, we dismiss the person's comments by saying, "You're making something out of nothing," or "You're just making a mountain out of ...

11. Not Another Rerun!

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

Not another rerun! Many of us probably expressed that sentiment at some point during the past summer when we sat down in front of the television for an hour or so of relaxation after a hard day's work. Disappointment then set in as we surfed our favorite channels only to discover that overly hyped unreal "reality" shows and reruns of programs we had already seen were all that was being shown. B...

12. Oh, By the Way…

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

The book of Daniel presents us with the words and visions of the prophet Daniel, who lived and worked in the Babylonian empire during the exile of the Jewish people there in the sixth and fifth centuries BC. Obviously, that was a difficult time for God's people, but, oh, by the way, the book of Daniel itself was probably put in its final form perhaps 300 years later during the persecution of the ...

13. Prisoners of Hope

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

We humans are really good at excuses. We’ve had lots of practice since Adam and Eve started the ball rolling by first blaming each other, then the serpent, and finally even blaming God for their rebellion against their Creator. Give us enough time and we can justify or rationalize away just about anything we do, especially when it comes to our relationship with God. Let me give you a true-life exa...

14. Put Within Us

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

Note: This text was also dealt with earlier in the exposition of the first reading for Proper 24. In the years immediately prior to 1517, Martin Luther was slowly but surely killing himself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As penance for his sins he would flog himself and sleep naked in his cell. His confession sessions sometimes lasted hours as he tried to ensure that every sin, no mat...

15. Shepherds Who Will Shepherd

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

A few years ago, Michael Crichton, of Jurassic Park and the television series ER fame, wrote a novel called State of Fear.[1] Crichton's book wasn't just for entertainment, though; it had an agenda, evidenced by the presence of footnotes, a 31-page bibliography, two appendices, and an addendum, titled "Author's Message." One of the basic messages of the book is that governments and special inter...

16. Thanksgiving Is Nine-Tenths Of Possession

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

In law I believe there is a basic legal principle that goes something to the effect that "possession is nine-tenths of the law." In other words, in a property or land dispute, the onus is really on the person who claims the other has his or her possession. It is a corollary, I suppose, to "innocent until proven guilty." Therefore, the person who has possession of the disputed property does not hav...

17. The Kiss of Life

John 20:19-23

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

The first kiss is a very powerful and meaningful thing, right? Recently I read a report in a magazine stating that the average American claims to have had 26 first kisses. Wow! What that says to me is that I missed out on a lot of first kisses! My wife’s take on that is not surprisingly, significantly different. Don’t spend the next fifteen minutes trying to remember, and then adding up, the num...

18. Welcome, Inc.

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

The lady of the house was giving last minute instructions to her butler before the start of a huge dinner being held at the estate: “Bentley,” she said, “I want you to stand at the front door and call the guests’ names as they arrive.” “Very well, madam,” replied the butler, “I’ve been wanting to do that for years.”1 One of the occupational hazards of being a butler is that you have to be welcomi...

19. Worship, Doubt, and the Trinity

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

Worship, doubt, and the Trinity — strange bedfellows, right? The odd one out is obviously doubt, isn’t it? Worship is one of the central activities of faith-filled people. The Trinity is an essential and distinguishing doctrine of the Christian faith. Clearly, the two go well together. But doubt? How did doubt creep in there, into this triumphant final scene after the resurrection when Jesus is sa...

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