Sermon and Worship Resources

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1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

It seems almost inevitable that people who experience the highs of life are also going to experience the lows in life. No one lives on a perpetual high. There are always peaks and valleys. The disciples accompanied Jesus to the mount to witness his transfiguration, but after that they descended into the valley below. Have you ever noticed how often the low comes right after the peaks? As a C...

2. Birthdays and Marriages

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

It is common to speak of Pentecost as the birthday of the church. I want to add to that the image of marriage. As most of you are aware, marriages do not just happen with the signing of a contract. There is the courting period and the public declaration of engagement before the formal ceremony takes place that lifts up the importance of the couple's commitment to each other. Even the forma...

3. God's Playful Wisdom

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

If I mentioned Sophia to you, what memories would it evoke? Would you think of a movie called Sophie's Choice? Or perhaps you know of someone whose name is Sophia. Some of you might think of a controversy stirred up several years ago at a women's conference that was exploring feminine images for God. Some who objected to their ideas accused them of pagan worship when they used Sophia to refer...

4. Mugwumpers

1 Kings 18:20-21 (22-29) 30-39

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

In certain streams of Christianity, it is common to speak of people being "born again." The phrase comes from an exchange between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus in the third chapter of John. In that exchange, Jesus contrasts being born of the flesh with being born of the Spirit. To be born of the flesh is to be shaped by the genes of your parents and their background. You come into thi...

5. On Loan From God

1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14) 15-21a

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

Sometimes it is hard to understand what it is in human nature that allows people to become so crass in their dealings with each other. We have all had the experience of being treated like a thing — a nonperson whose only value is to be used by someone else to accomplish their goals. No one likes that. We all want to be treated with the dignity that we believe belongs to humans. I think that ...

6. Seeing A Chariot Of Fire

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

I think that we are in a battle for the soul of the church. I'm not just talking about my Presbyterian denomination, although it certainly has its problems. I'm suggesting that we are in a battle for the soul of the whole church in our time. Wherever you turn, the church is changing and evolving toward something new, though it is not yet clear what that new form will look like. Our forms o...

7. The Naaman Syndrome

2 Kings 4:1-14

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

The healing of Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, seems to me to provide a metaphor for our time. We live in a world in which we pay attention to power and the powerful. We look to the powerful for the solutions to our world's problems. Naaman was one of those powerful people. He was a prominent commander of the army of Aram, a neighboring nation to Israel. Even powerful people ha...

8. The Sinner And The Sinned Against

1 Kings 17:1-24

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

Each of us experiences the world as both sinner and the sinned against. When we act in a way or even refuse to work against a condition that violates our relationship with God, other people, or the natural world, we are sinners. When we experience the painful result of a sinful world, whether it be a disease, poverty, a tragic accident, prejudice, or the violence of war or crime, we are the sinned...

9. When God Measures The Church

Amos 7:7-17

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

We begin to hear about prophets in the Bible after Israel convinced God to let them have a king. It was almost as if God set up his own checks and balances system. Once the people looked to a king and the government to guide them, God also called prophets to remind the government that it, too, was subject to God. There were apparently professional prophets in Israel who served as ethical ad...

10. When The Fruit Is Spoiled

Amos 8:1-12

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

When we speak of Amos today, we know that he was one of Israel's great prophets. Yet at the time when Amos spoke, he took pains to remind us that he was just an ordinary migrant worker. What he spoke were the words God had shown him. God spoke to him through a series of visions that came to Amos when he was in worship. As he participated in these common rituals of worship, which he and othe...

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